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MEMORIAL 


OF THE 


PARISH OF HANMER. 







NOTES AND PAPERS 


TO SERVE FOR A 

* 

MEMORIAL OF THE PARISH OF HANMER 

IN FLINTSHIRE. 


COLLECTED BY SIB JOHN HANMEB, BABT. 

H y 

AT BETTISFIELD, 1871-2. 


“ Purum anti quae lucis adire jubar.” 

Lord Wellesley, Primitia et Ileliqit'ue, p. 88. 


SECOND EDITION. 



WESTMINSTEB : 

PRINTED BY J. B. NICHOLS & SONS, 25, PARLIAMENT STREET. 


1872. 














/ 






< C < 

< c 

< c < 


^ ^ O 

* 









THE GREAT SEAL OF OWEN GLYNDWR. 


















































NOTE ON THE GREAT AND PRIVY SEALS OF OWEN GLYNDWR. 

By Mr. John Gough Nichols, F.S.A. 


The Great Seal was probably engraved in France, for its design resembles more 
closely the Great Seals of the Kings of that country than those of England. Instead of 
the niches and tracery which form the usual background of the English royal seals of' the 
same period, Owen has only a simple canopy over his head. Behind him is a curtain of 
tapestry sprinkled with lions, and held up by two angels. The Prince is seated on a 
throne, the four legs of which are decorated at their summits by projecting dragons,* and 
terminate at their teet in lion’s heads reguardant. Owen is certainly not crowned, but the 
impression is not sufficiently sharp to show whether he wears a cap or circlet, or merely a 
full head of hair. A sceptre is in his right hand, and his left hand appears to hold the 
right-hand glove. His feet rest upon two lions, and in this particular he follows the 
example of the French Kings, seen also in the seal of our Henry VI. made for his 
kingdom of France, which is engraved in Sandford’s Genealogical History of England. 

On the obverse Owen is in armour, on horseback, wearing an ample surcoat, par¬ 
ticularly flowing on his right arm ;f a crown over his helmet, and the crest of a dragon 
both on his own head and the head of his horse. His shield, and the housings of the 
horse, in front and rear, bear the arms of Wales, Quarterly gules and or, four lions 
rampant counterchanged.f 

The legend is alike on both sides, ©tontUS bft gratia ptmceps OTaRlO 



THE PRIVY SEAL OF OWEN GLENDWR. 


The Privy Seal of Owen Glyndwr presents the same arms as his Great Seal, under 
an open crown or coronet, without a crest, but with a dragon and lion for supporters, 
which are sejant and guardant. The legend J^igillUtlt ©tocnt pt'tnrtpis 512flallic. 

* Not “ the half-body of a wolf.” as described by Sir Henry Ellis, in Archceologia, xxv. 619. 

f Sir Henry Ellis says “ a drapery, probably a kerchief depleasance or handkerchief won at 
a tournament, pendant from the right wrist.” But with this I do not agree. 

| The same arms, but with the lions passant and guardant, have been usually attributed to 
North Wales. See in the Archceologia , vol. xxix. p. 407, an essay by the late Thomas William 
King, F.S.A., Rouge Dragon, and afterwards York Herald, “ On the Coats of Arms appro¬ 
priated to the Welsh Princes.” This was addressed to Sir Samuel R. Meyrick, by way of com 
ment upon two seals, of Edward son of King Edward IV., and Arthur son of Henry the VII., as 
Princes of Wales, which had been published in vol. xx. of Archceologia ; but Mr. King does 
not allude to the seal of Owen Glyndwr, which had been in the meantime published in the 
twenty-fifth volume of the same series. The seals of the two English Princes of Wales bear 
for arms three lions passant reguardant , their tails passing between their legs : a coat attributed in 
its origin to Roderick Mawr. 































































































t 






NOTES TO SERVE FOR A 


MEMORIAL OF THE PARISH OF HANMER, 

IN FLINTSHIRE. 


COLLECTED AT BETTISFIELD BY SIB JOHN HANMER, BART. 1871-2. 


Moronto fu mio frate ed Eliseo, 

Mia donna venne a me di val di Pado. 

E quindi il soprannome tuo sifeo. 

Caccia-guida to Dante. Paradiso, Cant. 15. 

I cannot undertake the minute and protracted office of a local antiquary, 
useful as it sometimes is when properly fulfilled, and not seldom accept¬ 
able and agreeable. The twenty years by which the law rightly defends 
our possessions ought not to limit our knowledge of the past; there is 
something in ignorance of it which is justly to be held ignoble; where 
men have it not they substitute inventions, and they are not always 
harmless ones; and imagination plays strange pranks, as should we require 
such testimony we may learn from the Natural History of Lord Bacon.* 
On the other hand to describe the real affairs of a rural district and the 
persons concerned in them in any amusing way is an attempt hard to 
satisfy. All the harder because of the writers become classic who have 
Succeeded in that line.' We may read their stories, and dwell upon the 
pictures they present; but if we would follow in their train, we may 
chance to find ourselves as far away from them as from Paradise, while we 
have the authority of the great Italian poet and of his ancestor Cacciaguida 
for believing that such familiar legends are permissible even there. All 
that is in my power is, following a genealogy of names which appears, 
after the manner of Wales, to have been preserved attentively, to make it 
less meagre by a few notes, as did Sir John Wynn of Gwydir. 

* Century X. section 945. 

B 




2 


A MEMORIAL 


But there is something even in this. That which is correct may now 
and then be serviceable: and there is an interest about antiquity where 
it speaks with homely voices, which the New World, even now that Bishop 
Berkeley’s prophecy seems likely to be fulfilled, will long attribute to the 
Old. An English village is pleasanter to see than an American forest; 
dateless and all hut trackless as it is, its solemnity overawes the traveller; 
but it loses effect as he passes by, with no footsteps save those of animals; 
nor sound, unless that of the wind from bough to hough among the pines. 

The Bomans, whose name of fluentum hovered somehow about our 
river, and fixed itself at last on the Norman castle “ apud le Elynt,” 
whence the name of Elintshire comes, were the colonizers and settlers of 
all our neighbourhood. But between those days, when the legions and the 
garrisons at Ur-Iconium on the Severn, and Deva on the estuary of the 
Dee, gave rise to towns and villages which still mark our district, and 
made roads along which we yet may ride, and the appearance of any local 
concerns that have relation to ourselves, extend a thousand years; and 
we may think it enough that the towns and villages remained for our 
beginning, and that Peoman words continue among us, to denote our 
familiar hounds. In some cases—as in that of the lands called Arowry, 
Apovprj * the plough-land, or in the Striga Lane , which, in rather colonial 
Latin it is true, means what the place is still, the hollow way, these 
names are found unaltered, and without any combinations. In others, as in 
the name of the parish of Hanmer itself, which is derived from the principal 
feature of its central spot, where the church and village stand, and is Ain 
Meer , The Water, the first syllable repeats the Syrian speech of the not 
distant Er-Iconium, and one of the most ancient terms to mean a village 
and fields extending by a water-side; the second syllable, of cognate 
intent, gives, by a not unusual process of nomenclature,! the like meaning 
in the language of succeeding dwellers on the spot, and a glimpse of the 
progress of ages and of people is thus given by what is, to us, the most 
familiar name. 

The parish which bears it consists of six considerable townships, 

* Varro observes the habit which his countrymen had of using Greek words about their 
homesteads and villas. “ Nee putant se habere villam si non multis vocabulis retineant Graecis 
quam vocant particulatim loca.” Lib. ii. 

f I find one of the names of Etna, “ Mongibello,” mentioned by Lord Stanhope in his second 


































































* 




































































' 




















































To fi.ce pa-gel. Pali: 1. 



Bridge over 
River Roden 
cm the Read 
to Werrv. 


Nichols <fe Sons .Lith, London 
























OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


3 


Hanmer,* Bettisfield, Bronington, Tybrougliton, Willington, and Halghton, 
lying together at the south-eastern extremity of the county of Flint, bor¬ 
dered outwardly by Cheshire and by the Welsh march, now in Shropshire, 
and by parts of the parishes of Malpas, Worthenbury, Bangor, and Elles¬ 
mere, in the Flintshire hundred of Maelor, on its inner or north-western 
side. These townships correspond, more or less, with the extensive 
lordship of Beddesfeld, as it is surveyed in Domesday-book, under the 
extinct Hundred of Dudestan, in Cheshire, there mentioned to be held 
subject to three knight’s fees and demesnes under Hugh Lupus, by Bobert 
Fitz-Hugh.f The name of Dudestan seems yet capable of being found in 
that of the hamlet and heath called “ Dudleston,” near Ellesmere, but by 
the time of the first establishment of the Welsh counties by King Edward, 
in the eleventh year of his reign, the ancient Terra de Maelor Saesneg had 
resumed its own place ; and here, owing to the changes of border war, 
Domesday could not be adduced as evidence of any limits. In such docu¬ 
ments as exist, the names of the ancient Welsh proprietors revert; among 
whom the country appears to have been very considerably gavelled.J 
King Henry III. in his time seems to have got some possession of 
Hanmer, for he granted, by a deed which bears no date, the church 
of the parish to the monks of Hauglimond, near Shrewsbury, who held it 
till the Deformation, conveying, meanwhile, the presentation of the 
vicarage to my family. 

series of Miscellanies as composed in this manner: “ a name made up of the Latin mons and the 
Arabic ghebel, both words meaning the same, and conjoined together by the mingled races of the 
time.” 

* These townships, with their associate vill of Iscoyd in Malpas parish, form the more valuable 
half, yet nearly balanced, of the hundred of Maelor, as it is assessed for the county rate at this 
day. Two other vills or hamlets formerly existed within the bounds of the township of Hanmer 
One was Gredington, a name I think derived from the residence of Adam de Creting, who was 
bailiff for Margaret second queen of King Edward I., for lands she held in the hundred of 
Maelor; the second Croxton, mentioned further on. Haulton in Bronington was also once 
a hamlet; a certain limit called Haulton Ring was known there in my remembrance. 

-j- Jane Brereton, who married Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knight Banneret, the father and mother 
of Eleanor Hanmer of the Fens, in the reign of Henry VIII., was descended from this Robert Fitz- 
Hugh; he was one of Hugh Lupus’s palatine Barons as baron of Malpas. CoJce, Fourth Institute. 

| I had lately occasion to state, in the House of Commons, that there is no parish in 
Flintshire which belongs to one proprietor; in this our generally large parishes in the North-west 
differ much from those in the Eastern parts of England. 


4 


A MEMORIAL 


Grant of the Church of Hanmer by King Henry III. 

Henricus Dei gratia Rex Anglie et Dux Normannie et Aquitanie et Comes Andegavie 
omnibus fidelibus suis Francie et Anglie salutem. Sciatis me dedisse et concessisse in 
liberam puram et perpetuam eleemosynam Canonicis fratribus Hamonencis ecclesie ad 
sustentacionem eorum ecclesiam de Hanmere, etc. Teste Ricardo de Luci, Hugone de Laci, 
Roberto Marmion, etc., apud Salopesburiam. 

This grant received ecclesiastical confirmation in the following terms:— 

CONFIRMATIO HlCARDI EPISCOPI. 

Ricardus Dei gratia Coventrie Episcopus omnibus sancte matris ecclesie salutem. Quia 
comperimus in visitatione nostra quam personaliter exercemus in Monasterio de Haghmon 
quod illius loci fratres regulares pro modicitate possessionum et defectu victualium non 
vacant contemplationi ut deberent, sed distarent per patriam pro necessariis vite eorum 
querendis; et ideo ad petitionem Domini Henrici Regis et Davidis Principis, Ecclesiam 
parochialem de Hanmer nunc vacantem cum omnibus ad earn pertinentibus de assensu 
Capituli nostri dicto Monasterio de Haghmon et fratribus ibidem deo servientibus et ser- 
vituris in posterum ad eorum sustentationem auctoritate pontificali appropriamus et in 
proprios usus concedimus retinendam perpetuo, etc. etc. etc. 

[The above are from copies at Bettisfield supposed to have been made from the Haughmond chartulary.] 

This mention of Prince David shows the grantor to have been King 
Henry III. though the deed is without date and the King’s regnal 
number is not added to his name. 

I should assume to be an antiquary if I dwelt longer on what (ac¬ 
cording to the date I prefer) are, for us, prehistoric times. There are a few 
more suggestive names however, such as Croxton, a former hamlet, now 
in Hanmer township, and Eglwys Cross at one end of it, which seem to 
show that a cross for preaching and for mass about its steps, before any 
church was built, may have existed there; and Llynbedydd, which in 
English is “ the pool of baptism,”* at a short distance from the spot, marks 

* The ground about Llynbedydd shows that it was once much larger and came 
nearly up to the present gate at Bettisfield. It is likely that the levels of this and other waters 
were greatly changed by some of the earthquakes which were prevalent in this district about the 
eleventh and twelfth centuries; they were mentioned a few years since in an article in the Quarterly 
Review. A winter or two' ago an ancient boat carefully wrapped in reeds, and hewn out of the 
trunk of a tree, was dug out of a bank which I had often remarked as the limit of a former shore. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


5 


a place where the rites of Christianity were first exercised; by whom, 
whether by the monks of Bangor or by St. Chad, is a question reaching 
over centuries. Yet I do not doubt that the monks of Bangor did carry 
their good works to all these places ; and as Ur-Iconium, the site of which, 
under the blue shoulders of the Wrekin * hill, is on the boundary of our 
landscape to the south, bore the transferred name of the Lycaonian city 
which had seen and heard St. Paul, it is not unreasonable to suppose it 
possible that the Christian civilization of all this district originally proceeded 
from some one coming from the East rather than from Borne, some colo¬ 
nizing Asian soldier of the Imperial garrisons. The name of the township 
of Tybroughton might seem at first to mean, in a compound of Welsh and 
Saxon, “ the vill of the house on the hill; ” but the only conspicuous 
rising in the township is a fioman milliary mound, proved so to have been 
by its position on the road-side, and by the discovery within it of coins of 
Constantine, and, as I read in Varro that such places were called “ Tehae,”t 
I think that the origin of the word may he derived from thence. Talar 
is a headland beyond ploughed ground, and Talarn Green, between the 
Sarnbridge and the ancient inclosed land at the northern end of Willington, 
answers exactly in position to its British name. Part of the way thither 
through Willington is called the Trawstre Lane. This word, which 
seems repeated in English in that of Willington Cross, hard by, perhaps 
shows the position of some cross for prayers and preaching once existing 
there. Bettisfield was at first called Llyshedydd, and this form, obviously 
connected with the neighbouring Llynbedydd and assignable to the same 
date, occurs as late as the reign of King James I., in the settlement of 
their property in the township, made by Anthony and William Hanmer, 
on Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt., of that day. 

Its waters flow southward to the Severn: the other five townships, 
by streams which unite in the neighbouring parish of Wortlienbury, send 
a considerable confluent to the river Dee. The otter comes up from thence, 
and the sweet small trout, his prey; the latter are of good service to us, 

* The obvious root of this word is the name of the Roman station Ur-ikon. The Wrekin is 
sometimes called “ Mons Gilberti ” in old Chronicles. Rising separately from the other hills, it seems 
not unlike Soracte, as well as I can remember that famous ridge, which I saw thirty years ago. 

f Nam lingua prisca et in Graecia Eoleis Boeotii sine afflatu vocant collis Tebas, et in Sabinis 
quo e Grcecia venerunt Pelasgi etiam nunc ita dicunt, Cujus vestigium in agro Sabino via Salaria 
non longe a Reate milliarius clivus appellatur Tebas. Yarro, de Agriculture, 1. iii. 

C 


6 


A MEMORIAL 


for I have known them grow to nearly two pounds weight in a year 
when they are put into Hamner mill-pool. The courses of these famous 
rivers may he traced by landmarks through the plains girded by the Welsh 
and Shropshire hills which hind us in from north by west to south; the one 
coming round the Breiddin and flowing within our southern horizon till it 
meets the Wrekin ranges, and turns again southward under them, first 
encircling Shrewsbury with its stream; the other breaking through the 
valley at Llangollen, and thence passing on to the towers of Chester on 
our northern landside, and often sending up the gleams of its broad 
estuary beyond.* Celebrated by poets from the days of Llywarcli Ifen, in 
the Polyolbion we may read of the Dee, as 

“A brook that is supposed much business to have seen; ” 

a fact not permissible for us to doubt; hut we might have expected that 
ancient river to be mentioned in nobler terms by Michael Drayton. 
Still Palestine, which contains the Jordan, is called in Deuteronomy a 
land of brooks of water, as well as of fountains and depths springing 
out of valleys and hills. Our hundred of Saxon Maelor f rises on 
the right hank, or follows it in fertile meadows along the low lands of 

* The extensive moss in Bronington and in Bettisfield, which I have mentioned further on, 
called “ the Fens Moss,” gives rise to the river Roden. The fire-blackened trees that are found 
within it make it likely that this was the site of the great wood mentioned in Domesday Book, 
within the lordship of Bettisfield, and that it was destroyed by King Edward the First, as a 
military precaution, when he finally took possession of Wales. The river Roden bounds us 
against the parish and lordship of Wem: in Domesday Book “ Aira accipitris ” is mentioned 
there. Six centuries later a worse bird of prey was to be found about it in the person of Judge 
Jeffreys. Our district has been distinguished by great lawyers. The year-books of King 
Edward III. show Sir David Hanmer to have been one, for he appears in many cases; and in the 
next reign he was one of the Judges at Westminster, and a Trier of Petitions in the House of 
Lords. Lord Ellesmere, in the time of James the First, was our neighbour at Lineal; Lord 
Jeffreys was Baron of Wem; Sir John Trevor was owner by acquisition from the ancient family 
of Dymock of a great part of the township of Willington, which still belongs to his representatives; 
and in the time of King George the Third, Chief Justice Lord Kenyon raised the house of 
Gredington, and made his name memorable and regarded among his neighbours of Hanmer, as 
well as throughout the realm. 

■f Maelor Hundred, or Terra de Maelor Saesneg, was one of the original component parts of 
the County of Flint, as set forth in the establishing Statute of Rothelan or Rhyddlan. Land was 
held there by the service “ faciendi sectam ad Comitatum de Flint de mense in mensem, et ad 
curiam Domini Regis de Maelor Seysnek de tribus septimanis in tres septimanas, et ad quatuor 
Sessiones del Flint per annum.” Inquisitions , 8th Ediv. II. corain John de Hinkele Ballivo 





OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


7 


Worthenbury. At Bangor it is crossed out of Denbighshire by a bridge 
more picturesque than convenient, constructed in ancient days 

By some ivise architect ivhose country wiles 

Challenged the floods with his tall ashlar stone , 

And fame knew not, but still teas John or Giles. 

And at Overton another bridge built within the present century replaces 
an old one where the reaches of the river above, and below present very 
beautiful scenery. The roads crossing these bridges converge in Hanmer 
parish near Eglwys Cross, and lead to the market town of Whitchurch in 
Shropshire, long the patrimony of the Talbots who inherited the barony 
of Strange of Blackmere near that place. Blackmere* is now nearly 
filled up by the earthworks necessary to carry the Crewe and Shrewesbury 
Railway over the ground once occupied by its pools. At a short distance, 
at Whitchurch Station, the Cambrian Railway joins the other, and 
traverses the parish of Hanmer, through the townships of Bronington and 
Bettisfield, in safety, over what was asserted to be the impracticable Bens 
Moss. I must say a word, as I pass on, in favour of its wild spaces, over 
which the wind breathes freely, and where the grey-hen and the fern-owl 
and the curlew may be seen among the turf-stacks by travellers entering 
Wales along that line. Since I can remember, we had the large broad¬ 
winged kites ; but these beautiful birds, whose flight is not unlike that of 
an eagle, are no longer to be gazed at above the firs. Foxes prowl about 
the turbary and may live long upon it if they will, for no huntsman 

Isabelle Reyine Any lie de Overton in Maelor Seysnilc. The freeholders also with their men 
attended the King in his wars. Much learning has been bestowed on the meaning of the term “ free 
and common socageas it occurs in the Act 12th Car. II. cap. 24, abolishing the feudal tenures, I 
find it explained in relation to such services as these in a Plea de quo Warranto against the 
Abbot of Conway, pp. 144-9, of the book called the Record of Caernarvon, published by Her 
Majesty’s Commissioners, 1838. “ Abbasde Conewey summonitus fuit ad respondendum domino 

Principi de placito quo warranto clamat habere Sok et Sak,” etc. etc. etc., and the Abbot says 
“ quod per ilium verbum Sok clamat habere sectarn omnium tenentium suorum, et per illud 
verbum Sac cognitionem placitorum que ad Curium Baronis pertinent.” Thus it appears that the 
free-services incident to the local administration of justice were all that were intended by socage, in 
which, as is shown by the inquisition I have cited, the freeholds in this hundred were originally held. 

* Blackmere is said in some accounts of it to have been so called from the colour of the 
water, but there is nothing black about it, any more than in the land adjacent, which is called the 
Black Park. The true original name was Blancmere, from Blancminster or Whitchurch, in 
which parish and lordship it lies. 


8 


A MEMORIAL 


can follow there. Lord Chancellor Thurlow was once with difficulty extri¬ 
cated from it, putting to proof by induction, though he was warned, that it 
was dangerous to man and horse. The fir-woods by which it is bordered 
reproduce themselves from the cones wherever they are fallen; and, 
though the timber is not of any great size, it is sound and tenacious, and 
very useful in the never-ending work of new buildings and cottages. Ear 
across the moss, on the borders of Whixal in Shropshire, there is a place 
called the Oafs’ or Elves’ Orchard, but the “little people ” have not lately 

been seen. Bishop Corbet said long since, 

“ But since of late Elizabeth, 

And later James came in, 

They never danced on any heath 
As when the time hath bin 

and, now, a presumptuous improver solicits me to let him grow potatoes 
in the direction of their boundaries. These are full of wild fowl in the 
winter, metaphorical as well as real; and then when the wind from the 
westward comes down with its snow-clouds and its curtains, and the 
flakes like the Scythian feathers whirl over the brown lieath-tops, the good 
folks of Bronington unconsciously repeat the figure of the Eather of 
History, and tell their children by the fireside that the Welshmen are 
plucking then’ geese. The high road from Whitchurch, leading from 
Bedbrook by this place, where the name of Clayley still remains upon a 
portion of the land, appears to have been made within our limits by virtue 
of the following writ, dated the year before the Constitution of Elintshire, 
when the Shropshire Sheriff, who yet had no jurisdiction in the March, was 
the nearest one at hand. 

Welsh Boll, 10 Edward I., memb. 6 in dorso. 

Cum Rex constituent Willielmus Le Botiler de Wemme capitaneum municionis sue 
in partibus de Albo Monasterio Warenn* et injunxerit eidem quod passus de La Rede Broc 
et Batebruggemore et de Cleley succindi faceret prout Rex ei dixit viva voce, mandatuin 

* I do not understand what is meant by the word Warenn (unless it was Whittington then 
belonging to the Fitzwarrens, and lying between Album Monasterium at Whitchurch and Album 
Monasterium at Oswestry), all wnich country is called in an old and fabulous French Romance 
given me by Sir Thomas Hardy “ La Blanche Lande.” It seems to me that the writ must have 
been drawn by some one who did not well know the border limits, and must have depended on the 
personal orders of the King, given, as it is said, viva voce to William le Boteler, whose near adjacent 
lordship of Wem was in Shropshire. Batebrugge I suppose to mean a wooden bridge. 


OE THE PARISH OE HANMER. 


9 


est \ icecomiti Salopiae quod eidem Willielmo consulens sit et auxilians ad premissa facienda. 
Et quod faciat habere eidem Willielmo de probioribus et fortioribus hominibus de hundredis 
de Bradeford et de Pimmenbull qui passus illos succindere possint ut predictum est, et 
quod hominibus de hundredis firmiter injungat ex parte Regis quod eidem Willielmo ad 
passus illos succindendos et ad alia facienda que eis injunget ex parte Regis intendentes sint 
et respondentes quociens opus fuerit et per ipsum moniti fuerint et ea diligenter faciant 
et expleant que ipse eis injunget ex parte Regis, et hoc sicut dampnum suum vitare volue- 
rint non omittant. Teste Rege apud Cestriam viij die Junii. 

No minerals have been found within our parish. If there are any, as 
has been supposed on the side of Tybroughton, and about the neighbouring 
salt springs in Iscoyd, they are deeply hidden by sand and clay, with marl 
and gravel here and there, belonging to what, by a geological term far 
fetched from Penn in Russia, is now called in books the Permian formation. 
The country generally is a rolling upland containing one of the two 
divisions of the watershed which exist in Flintshire, and has been found 
by the Ordnance surveyors to correspond pretty nearly in altitude with the 
ridges of the Denbighshire hills opposite to us along the line of the Ceiriog 
river: the level of the mere at Ellesmere, to wdiich we descend by steep 
slopes, is reputed to be nearly even with the top of St. Mary’s spire at 
Shrewsbury. The soil is best adapted for pasture, and the Roman industry 
of cheese-making; there are few sheep, but everywhere stocks of well- 
bred cattle and many horses.* It also brings good barley, and hops seem 
once to have been planted here; they grow wild in several hedges near 
Hanmer village; I have seen them bearing a luxuriant though untended 
growth, answering to favourable seasons elsewhere in the cultivated hop- 
yards. In common with all the land along the Shropshire and North Welsh 
border, it is inhabited by an excellent race of people, who, on varied holdings, 
make their agriculture respectable; the kind of farmer “ Qui fruges ex- 
cantasset ” idly crying for protection, and thus, as it seems to me, making 
himself obnoxious to the law of the Twelve tables,! is now rarely to be found. 

* Good horses were of old time among the characteristics of this district. In the reign of 
King Henry II. Giraldus Cambrensis passed through it, with Archbishop Baldwin, preaching the 
Crusade; and he mentions in the 12th chapter of his Itinerary how they went from Chester to 
Whitchurch, and thence to Oswestry, and saw near the latter place, which is in our sight, fine 
breeding studs, established with Spanish (Barb) horses brought over by Robert de Belesme. He 
says the produce was remarkable for shape and speed. 

j- Table VIII. cap. v. De delictis; see Ortolan’s History of the Roman Law. 

D 


10 


A MEMORIAL 


But my chief business in these pages is with antecedents, and if, with 
this view, I begin by looking to the pedigree of my own family, which is 
necessary as a kind of stem for the surrounding foliage, I find that the 
liberality of the heralds has endowed us with so many great and legendary 
predecessors that, though they may he true enough, I am afraid to reckon 
on them too much, lest the comparison between the Kings and Princes of 
Wales and the gentlemen of Hanmer, their descendants, should be too 
striking. I will only take up my parable from the time of King Edward 
the Eirst, when Sir Thomas de Macclesfeild, one of the officers of chat 
King, having come into Wales in his service, and settled himself at 
Hanmer, his son Sir John, his grandson Philip, and his great-grandson 
Sir David, the judge, married respectively in their times ladies descended 
from these famous progenitors, since which we have gone on like the rest 
of the world, one after another: 

Come i frati minor vanno per via. 

It is true, however, that through these ladies we hold lands at present, 
which for eight or nine centuries, or longer, have never been out of the 
possessions of their blood and race. Bhys Sais, and the lords of Powis, 
and Hawis, and Agnes, and Angharad, through whose lines they were 
acquired, have gone into the world of shadows, but the lands remain, and 
I hope will still enable their descendants to give a resting-place to 
the colt and to the deer, and to serve their country. Dante reminds 
everyone how this can only be, 

Ben se tu manto die tosto raccorce 
Si die se non s'appon di die in die 
Lo tempo va d’intorno con le force. 

Paradiso, Cant. 16. 

There are several writs directed to Thomas de Macclesfeild and others 
on the King’s affairs; in one he is called c< Clericus noster,” which gives 
a legal application to that phrase. I have a grant also by the freeholders 
to him and his heirs for ever of waste lands near “ Cronemoss,” now 
called Cronymoor, in Hanmer, to be held by yearly payment of a rose at 
the Eeast of St. John the Baptist, and in the shape not of waste but of 
cultivated inclosures I still possess the land. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


11 


Writ. 22nd Edw. I. a.d. 1294. 

[From the Gascon Rolls of the year above mentioned.] 

Rex dilecto et fideli suo Reginaldo de Grey Justiciario suo Cestrensi, salutem. Quia 
per vos et certiorari volumus et plenius informari de quot et quibus tam equitibus quam 
peditibus potentioribus et validioribus ad arma de comitatu de Flint et de terra nostra de 
Dyffryn-Clwyd et etiam de terris dilecti et fidelis nostri Henrici de Lacy Comitis 
Lincolniensis de Ros et Ryvoniog in instanti negotio nostro Vasconise poterimus melius 
nos juvare, prout dilectus et fidelis noster Robertus de Staundon Justiciarius noster North- 
walliae, et Thomas de MaJclesfeud clericus noster , quibus in hoc negotio plenius exposuimus 
voluntatem nostram, vobis referre poterunt viva voce. Yobis mandamus quod vocatis 
coram vobis sine dilatione omnibus illis de predictis Comitatu et terris per quos super 
premissis melius poteritis informari, eligi faciatis de partibus illis totos liujusmodi homines 
potentes et validos quot ibidem poteritis invenire, quos sic electos ex parte nostra diligenter 
requiratis et ipsis firmiter injungatis quod sint prompti et parati videlicet quilibet eorum 
secundum quod statum suum deceat apud Salopiam in crastino Sancti Michaelis proximo 
futuro (30th Sept. 1294) ad faciendum quod eis ibidem tunc mandabimus et injungi facie- 
mus. Et de numero et nominibus equitum et peditum per vos sic electorum nobis sub 
sigillo vestro distincte et aperte constare faciatis. Et hoc nullo modo omittatis. Teste 
Rege apud Dona ( illegible ) xxx die Augusti. 


Grant, without date, but in the writing of the reign of King Edward I., 
by the Freeholders of Hanmer to Thomas de Macclesfeld of certain 
waste lands to him and his heirs for ever. 

[From the Muniments at Bettisfield.] 

Sciant omnes, tam presentes quam futuri, quod nos Bledyn filius Yorwerth, Yorwerth 
Goych, Ener filius Ener filius Bledyn, Bledyn filius Ener, David filius Ener, Adam filius 

Ener, Ener filius Eden Oweyn, Eynon filius Wyon, -filius Eynon, Phelipp filius 

Bledyn, David filius Yevan filius Wyon, Yevan filius David filius Wyon, David filius 
David filius Wyon, et Madoc filius David, dedimus concessimus et hac praesenti charta 
nostra confirmavimus Thome de Macclesfeld, et heredibus suis, vel suis assignatis quandam 
placeam terra de vasto nostro de Hannemer cum pertinentibus juxta Cronimos infra has 
divisas, incipientes ubi Wyon Ruding cadit in Cronimos, sequendo sepem dicti Wyon 
Ruding versus Boream usque domum dicti Thome,* et sic de domo ilia sequendo magnam 

* The site of a house with a large circular moat, which most likely was this one, may still 
be traced on a knoll near Hanmer Mill brook, on the right of the lane leading from Hanmer into 
Halghton. 




12 


A MEMORIAL 


viam usque Overbeck, et sic inter boscum et planum directe usque viam que venit de 
Bronington versus Hannemer, et sic sequendo illam viam usque campum qui vocatur Maes 
tre-budd-wleder, et sic sequendo sepem dicti campi descendendo usque Cronimos, et sic 
sequendo Cronimos versus Boream inter humidum et siccum, usque Wyon Ruding, cum 
totfi parte totius vasti, quod vocatur Tholn Hannemer, quam Torwerth Goych babuit, et 
habere debuit, habendam et tenendam de nobis, et heredibus nostris, predicto I home et 
heredibus suis et assignatis, libere, quiete, bene et in pace hereditarie, in bosco, in piano, 
in aquis, et omnibus libertatibus, commoditatibus, et asiamentis ville de Hannemer existen- 
tibus ubique, reddendo inde annuatim predictus Thomas et heredes sui et assignati nobis et 
heredibus nostris unam rosam in festo Nativitatis Sancti Johannis Baptiste pro omm 
servitio, sect’, exactione, consuetudine, et demanda quacunque; et nos predicti Bledyn 
filius Yorwerth, Yorwerth Goych, Ener filius Ener filius Bledyn, Bledyn filius Ener, 

David filius Ener, Adam filius Ener, Ener filius Eden Oweyn, Eynon filius Wyon,- 

filius Eynon, Phelipp filius Bledyn, David filius David filius Wyon, Yevan filius David 
filius Wyon, David filius David filius Wyon, et Madoc filius David, predictam terram et 
tenementum predicto Thome et heredibus suis, vel assignatis, nos predicti et heredes nostri 
contra omnes homines et sectarios warrantabimus, adquietabimus, et defendemus in per- 
petuum. In cujus rei testimonium presenti scripto sigilla nostra apposuimus, his testibus, 

Roberto de-tunc ballivo de Overton, Oweyn filio Wrenoch, David filio-et 

Tudor fratre ejus,-Vachan, Ryrith fratre ejus, Yorwerth Goych fratre eorum, 

Yorwerth filio--, Eynon filio-, Kenewrych filio Lewelin, Bledin filio Madoc, 

Ychel filio Tudor, David fratre ejus, et multis aliis. 

It does not appear whom Thomas de Macclesfeild married; he had 
a son and heir Jordan who inherited lands in Wortlienbury as heir of 
another brother Roger, which were the subject of Inquisition, 10th Edw. II.; 
in which proceedings, taken before the Justices of Chester at Wortlienbury, 
it is stated how “ predictus Jordanus frater predicti Rogeri. mortem ipsius 
Rogeri ignorans Oxoniis studio vacavit ,” a practice, it is to he feared, much 
imitated by students in these days. The younger son, our forefather Sir John, 
who married Hawis of Powis,* and is reputed to have first assumed the name 

* She was daughter of Eineon of the family of Gwenwynwyn, lord of Powis. The pedigree 
in the Heraldic Visitations of Wales, published by Sir S. Meyrick, begins with her husband, and 
calls him Sir John de Hanmer. This pedigree was made by Lewis Dwn, the herald, in the reign 
of Queen Elizabeth. Collins gives Thomas de Macclesfield as our founder in the male line, and 
says his son Sir John, residing at Hanmer, first took that name. Camden also, in the Bri¬ 
tannia, without specifying the person, gives the same reason for the name: “ Unde clara sane et 
antiqua qute ibi habitat familia nomen assumpsit.” Sir John is said to have been Constable of 
Caernarvon Castle under King Edw. I., and I have seen somewhere particulars of this, the record 





OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


13 


of Hanmer, from the lands he had obtained there, is also called in some of 
the pedigrees John de Upton. I observe that there is a place called 
Upton in Macclesfield Uorest, and it appears to me that the variety of the 
names of these two generations,* which has perplexed some genealogical 
writers, may be thus fairly explained. Of Philip, the son of John de 
Upton or Hanmer, I know little more than the far-reaching pedigree of his 
wife Agnes, coming down through Ehys Sais, and his son Tudor,f who is 
mentioned in Domesday, and Jonas, Eirid, and others, whose heiress she 
was, to the time of King Edward the Second. The house built by Sir 
Thomas Hanmer in the reign of Henry the Eighth probably stood on some 
of this lady’s land, since its walls are addressed by the Welsh poet, whose 
rhymes will he found further on, as “ the walls of the race of Eirid ” 

The arms which we quarter with our own, Argent, two lions passant 
gardant azure, viz., three boars argent passant on a field azure—are those 
of her family. She appears to have belonged to the tenth generation in 
descent from Tudor Trevor. 

The next owner of Hanmer, Sir David son of Philip and Agnes, 
went to the English bar, and his name yet appears honourably among its 
records. In the 49th Edward III. he was one of the serjeants, and 1st 
Eichard II., a.d. 1377, King’s Serjeant4 In the 6th of that King he was 
one of the justices of the King’s Bench. In the Year Book, Hilary Term, 
1374-5, is a case in which he was concerned as an advocate which does not 
give a great idea of the repair of buildings in those days : a man brought 
a claim of waste, against which Fulthorpe says, “ As to the chamber and 
the grange they were poor, and the timber (le merisme) perished at the 
time of the lease; and, as to the cottage, you built it since the lease with- 


of which has escaped rae; according to my note however the allowance for the charge was 200 
marks per annum, with a garrison of 80 men, a chaplain, surgeon, and smith. 

* See Pennant’s Tour in Wales on this question. 

t “Tudor quidem Walensis tenet de Comite Itogerio unam finem terra Walensis et inde 
reddit £4 5s.” This comes after the lordship of Whittington, in the Shropshire Domesday ; and 
Mr. Eyton, in his Shropshire Antiquities, attributes the “ finem terra,” on the authority of Welsh 
writers, to some part of Maelor. 

Thus he was contemporary with Chaucer, and perhaps not unknown to him. We might 
accept with satisfaction the portrait of the Serjeant-at-Law, in the prologue to the Canterbury 
Tales, for his own. 

E 


14 


A MEMORIAL 


out our consent .” Hammer replies, “ As to the cottage there was one at 
the time of the lease; and as to the houses you by your indenture granted 
to repair and to keep them in as good a state and better than they then 
were.” Then says Fulthorpe? “ It is a breach of covenant at most, and 
not waste,” and so on. This case seems apposite to the time at which I 

am looking into these old records; for questions of the kind, it is to be 

feared, will now, 500 years later, often occupy the attention of the courts, 
at least in Ireland. 

In 2nd Richard II. (A.E. 1378—9) he sat with Mons r Johan de 
Cavendish and others of the judges to give judgment in Parliament in a 
case concerning a grant of the late King to the widow of John de Holand, 
Earl of Huntingdon, daughter of John of Gaunt, as appears by the Rolls 
of Parliament. 

In the 6tli, 7tli, 8th, 9th, and 10th Richard II. he was summoned 

and sat as one of the triers of petitions in the House of Lords. 

In 6tli Richard II. Roll of Parliament held at Westminster :— 

Sont assignez Triours des Petitions de Gascoigne et d’autres Terres et Pays de la 
Meer, et de les Isles, 

l 

L’Evesque de Norwiz, Touz ensemble ou iiii des Prelatz et 

Le Cont de Buk Conestable d’Angleterre, Seigneurs avant ditz, appellez a eux Chan- 
Mon sr John de Cobham de Kent, celler, Tresorer, Sen’, Chamberlein, et les 

Le S r Fitzwauter, Serjeants le Roy quant il busoignera. Et 

Mon sr David Hannemer, tendront leur place en la Chambre Marcolf. 

and several others, &c. &c. &c. 

7th Richard II. Roll of Parliament held at New Sarum :— 

Et sont assignez Triours des Petitions de Gascoigne et d’autres Terres et Pays de la 
Meer, et des Isles, 

L’Evesque de Nichole [Lincoln], 

Le Priour de St. Johan Jerlm in Engleterre, 


* There was a knight of this name who Sir Harris Nicolas says was not a judge, but never¬ 
theless in 1405 was directed by King Henry IV. to pass sentence of death, at Bisliopsthorpe, on 
Archbishop Scrope, for his rising, Chief Justice Gascoyne having refused to do so. He was 
perhaps son of the Fulthorpe in the text. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


15 


Le Cont de Oxenford, 

Le S r de Cobham. 

Mon sr Davy Hanraere, 

and several others, &c. &c. &c. 

Et tendront leur place en la Chambre des Chauntours, pres de la Porte de la Sale. 

The like entries are in the Rolls of Parliament held at Westminster, 
8th, 9th, and 10th Richard II. In the 9th, L’Ercevesque de Everwyk, 
L’Evesque de Duresme, etc. were among the triers with Mon sr David 
Hannemere. 

At some time in this reign, to which I cannot assign any exact date, 
Morgan David ap Llewellyn was put upon his trial at Caermarthen for 
killing the Judge upon the bench there, a fact which our friends the Irish 
have not as yet emulated. Strange to say, his partisans appear to have 
expected help and assistance from Sir David Hanmer. Thus he is 
addressed by a bard on the occasion, as I find in a printed English transla¬ 
tion of his verses, which I have abridged considerably :— 

“ Sir David, the asserter of justice, 

The moderator of the meted law, 

Of the golden-crested helmet of the race of Mordav,* 

Thine is a great name, Yr Arglwydd Hanmer. 

Far-famed thy tongue and thy counsel, 

Come thou, with thy gifts of wisdom, 

To the citadel of Merlin, at my seeking, 

To maintain throughout the contest 
Richard the noble king. 

When thou seest, worthy lord, 

The case and cause of the good man whom I love, 

A thousand with thee will certify for him, 

Morgan the generous, the giver of gold ; 

Grant to him, though a hundred should come, 

A jury becoming an innocent man ; 

The nobles must not appear before peasants of crestless helmets,” 

&c. &c. &c. 

The wife of Sir David was Angharad, whom I have already mentioned? 
daughter of Llewellyn Ddu (Black Llewellyn) ap Griffin ap Yorwerth Yoel, 

* I do not find this name in the Welsh pedigree, which contains, however, Hoel dda, the 
lawgiver, a fit ancestor for a judge, and perhaps this was the one originally written. 


16 


A MEMORIAL 


of the descent of Tudor Trevor, by whom he had three sons, Griffin, John 
his successor, and Philip, and two daughters, one Mary married to David 
ap David Dymock, according to the pedigree of that family at the Heralds’ 
Office, where she is written “ Mared daughter of David Voel ap Philip 
Hanmer,” see likewise the Dymock pedigree in The Painted Book at 
Wynnstay : the other of more historic fortune was Margaret, wife of Owen 
Glyndwr. One of her daughters, as we know by Shakespeare’s play and other¬ 
wise, married Sir Edmund Mortimer, second son of Boger Mortimer, Earl 
of March, and of Philippa of Clarence, w r hose eldest son Boger, the brother 
of Sir Edmund, was heir to the Crown before the fall of King Bichard II. 

It appears that Shakespeare was wrong in his history as to Edmund 
Mortimer, where he makes Percy ask of Northumberland (Act i. Scene 3, 
of King Henry IV.) : 

Did King Richard then 
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer 
Heir to the Crown ? 

since it was Boger whom that unfortunate King proclaimed. 

Surely also he is led astray by his imagination, as will happen even 
to great poets sometimes, when he makes the lady understand nothing 
but Welsh: 

This is the deadly spite that angers me, 

My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. 

The Boll of the Issue of the Exchequer, 4th May, 1st Henry V., 
shows these poor ladies, the daughter and granddaughter of Sir David, the 
latter of whom might have been, or indeed was, an English Princess by 
her marriage, in a very different position : 

“ To John Weele, Esq r . In money paid by his own hands for the expenses 
“ of the wife of Owen Glendourdi, the wife of Edmund Mortimer, and others 
“ their sons and daughters, in his custody in the city of London, at the King’s 
“ Charge, by his command, £30.” 

Of the sons of Sir David Hanmer, Griffin, married Guervila, daughter 
of Tudor ap Grono ;* she was sister of Meredith, father of Owen, the 


* It was Owen ap Meredith ap Tudor ap Grono who married Katherine of Valois, mother 
of King Henry VI. Lord Coke says, and truly (4th Inst. cap. 47), that all these were Christian 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


17 


grandfather of King Henry VII., and left a daughter married into the 
Puleston family, whose descent came again to ours. John succeeded him 
at Hanmer. Philip I do not trace; he fell in I suppose like the leaves 
of a tree about its foot. They are all mentioned in a deed of settlement 
at Bettisfield, with Owen Glyndwr for one of the trustees, an old translated 
abstract of which runs as follows :— 

Grant by Griffin Hannemere, John Hannemere, and Philip Hannemere, sons and 
heirs of David de Hannemere, knight, to Mathew Hannemere, clerk, and William 
Smethcot, chaplin, their heirs and assigns, of the manor of Hannemere, with all the lands, 
tenements, &c. thereunto appertaining, as also all their lands, tenements, &c. in Worthen. 
bury and Bangor. In witness whereof the above named have set their seals, in the presence 
of witnesses. Dated at Hannemere, Tuesday the feast of the nativity of St. John the 
Baptist. 11th Richard II. (1387-8). 

To which is attached 

Grant by Mathew Hannemere, clerk, and William Smethcot, chaplin, to Owen 
Glyndourdy (Owen Glyndwr) and Meredyth ap Lluddwy, of the manor of Hannemere, 
with all the lands, tenements, &c. thereunto belonging, as also their lands and tenements, 
&c. in Worthenbury and Bangor, which the said Mathew Hannemere and William 
Smethcot had by gift and feoffment of Griffin, John, and Phillip Hannemere, sons of 
David de Hannemere, knight, as is fully shown by their grant. The said Owen and 
Meredyth to have and to hold the lands during the life of the widow of David de Hanne¬ 
mere, knight, for alimony thence due, and after her decease the said lands to remain in 
possession of Griffin Hannemere, and his heirs male, and in case of failure of heirs male to 
the said Griffin, the said lands to be held by his brother John Hannemere. And if the 
said John Hannemere should also die without heirs male, the said lands to descend to his 
brother Philip Hannemere. In witness whereof the said Mathew Hannemere and William 
Smethcot have set their hands and seals, in the presence of witnesses, at Hannemere, the 
Monday before the feast of the Apostle St. James, in the 11th year of King Richard II. 
(1388.) 

John Hanmer and his brother-in-law Owen Glyndwr, and many others 
of the ancient families of our district, are mentioned as witnesses in the 
well-known suit for a coat of arms commemorated in the Scrope and 

names; so that, he says, Queen Elizabeth might rather have been called Elizabeth Owen, or 
Elizabeth Meredith, as nearer to her in the pedigree, than Tudor. 

F 


18 


A MEMORIAL 


Grosvenor Roll. Like good neighbours, they stood for their own country¬ 
man, while all the Northern gentlemen were on the Scrope side. A legend 
appears to have grown up that this John, son of Sir David, was killed at 
the battle of Shrewsbury 22nd July 1403; hut this is plainly contradicted 
by evidence ; and it is not likely that he was in the battle, for the troops of 
Owen Glyndwr were not there. The moody chieftain was not ready, or 
perhaps preferred carrying on war on his own account; hut his brother-in- 
law was his envoy the next year at Paris, where he contracted a treaty of 
amity and alliance for the Principality of Wales with the Prench King. In 
the 12th year of King Henry IV. he was fined 100 marks, with liberty to 
pay it by 20 marks a year, and pardoned, for rebelling with Owen Glyndwr. 
He married two wives; first, Margaret * daughter and heiress of David ap 
Blethyn Vychan, of Llwyn Derw, or Okenholt, near Plint, through whom 
the family of Griffith his eldest son, long afterwards heads of the house, 
our leaders and kinsmen, whom ultimately we succeeded, came; secondly, 
Eva daughter of David ap Grono ap Iorwertli of Haulton and Llay, by 
whom he had an eldest son John settled at those places, a second Edward 
of the Pens, in Bronington, our lineal ancestor in the male line, and a 
third, Richard of Bettisfield, most of whose lands went a few generations 
afterwards to an heiress, and were repurchased in my own time. His house 
came to the elder branch of the family in the reign of King James I., and, 
with additions of buildings and demesnes, it has been the chief abode of 
their successors since the Civil War. 

The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll is often quoted with reference to 
Chaucer the poet, who was one of the witnesses for Scrope. In the same 
trial as I have mentioned came John Hanrner and his kinsmen of Glyndwr, 
whose evidence I extract from the now rare and valuable publication of 
Sir Harris Nicolas. The case was being heard for five years from A.D. 
1385 to 1390. 9th to 14th Richard II. 


* This lady was descended from the line of Edwin of Englefield. We retained her inherit¬ 
ance of Okenholt in the time of King James I. I do not know when or how it went out of ou r 
hands. A few shells of ancient trees on the left hand of the road leading from Kesterton into 
Flint mark where the house once stood. 



OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


19 


Testimony of Owen Glyndwr, John de Hanmer, and Tudor de 

Glyndwr. 

Oweyn Sire de Glendore del age xxvij anz & pluys jurf admys & diligentement 
examine de & sur le droit de monf Robt le Grosveno r de port? les armes cestassavoir dazure 
ov un bend dore dit q lez ditz armes de droit apptinent a monf Robert le Grosveno 1 . Requys 
coment il ce sciet, dit qil ad oie des ansciens gentz as queux il croia q les auncestres du dit 
monf Robt al temps de Conquest Dengle?re out portez les ditz armes sans ascun reclama- 
cion & unqs nad oie de la cont“"ire tanq a ceste psente debate moeve. Requys auxi sil 
unqs vist le dit monf Robert arme en les ditz armez dit q oilt cestassavoir en le derein 
viage nre seignur le Roy qore est en Escoce. Requyst outf sil vist aucuns charteres ou 
autrs munimentz auncientz ensealez ov sealz eantz les ditz armes eng^vez dit q oil. Et dit 
qils estoient molt aunciens come il sembloit p vieu de pchemyn & del cere. It dit le dit 
jurf qen le conte de Cestre & Flynt & autfis lieux et contees pcheinz publik vois et fame 
est q les ditz armes ont appteine & apptinent come desuz au dit monf Robt & a sez 
auncestres.—Yol. i. p. 254. 

Johan de Hanmere del age * xxij anz & pluis jurf admys & diligentment exale si les 
armes dazure ove un bend dore aptynent de droit a monf Robt Grosveno r dit q oil.f 
R. coment il sciet dit qil ad oie des g“"ntz & anxiens gentz dire as queux il dona credence 
q un Gilbart le Grosveno r vient en le conte de Cestf ovesq, Hugli de Louff q fuist le priiS 
cont de Cestf aps le darrien Conquest Dengle?re & le dit Gilbart porta les ditz armes & 
touz ses successours jesqes a monf Robt qore est linialment descendantz & ceo pesiblement 
& quietement & sanz qconq, cont^diccion ou reclamacion tanq, a ceste psente debate moeve 
& ne oia unques de la conY'ire et dit qil vist monf Robt suzdist qore est arme en les armes 
suzdistz en la darrein viage nre seignur le Roi en Escoce. Et outre dit le dit jurf qil ad 
vieu cbres & munimentz en non des ancestres du dit monf Robt ove aunciens sealx eiantz 
les ditz armes en cere engravez. Et auxi dit le dit jurf q coe vois & publik fame ad este 
& est en le conte de Cestre & autres lieux pcheinz q les armes dazure ov un bend dore 
aptineront & aptinent de droit au dit monf Robt & as ses auncestres dancien temps come 
desuz est depose.—Yol. i. p. 259. 

Tuder de Glyndore del age xxiiij anz & pluis jurf admys & diligentement exaie si 
les ditz armes cestassavoir dazure ove un bend dore aptinent de droit a monf Robt le 
Grosveno r dit q oil. R. coment il ceo connust dit qil ad oie des g^ntz & aunciens gentz as 
queux il dona credence q un Gilbart le Grosveno r vient en le conte de Cestre ovesq, Hugh 
de Louff le prim cont de Cestre apres le darrien Conquest Dengle?re et le dit Gilbard porta 
les ditz armes & touz ses successoures jesqes a monf Robert qore est linialment descendant 
& ceo pesiblement & quietement sanz qconq, cont^diccion au reclamacion tanq a cest psent 

* Sir H. Nicolas believes the ages of the deponents in this trial to have been in several 
instances incorrectly given, 
j “ oil” is “oui.” 


20 


A MEMORIAL 


debate moeve & ne unques oia de la cont^ire. A ux i dit le dit jurr qil ad vieu sovent foitz 
aunciens chartres & munimentz ensealez en nom des ditz auncestres du dit monf Robt ove 
aunciens sealx eiantz les ditz armes eng“~vez. Et auxi dit le dit jur? q publike vois et fame 
ad este & est en le conte de Cestre & en au?s lieux pscheins q les armes dazure ove un 
bend dore aptyneront & aptynent de droit au dit monf Robt et a sez auncestres aptynoient 
dancien temps come desuz est depose.—Vol. i. p. 260. 

I may add the testimony to the same effect of one of our kinsmen and 
neighbours of ancient days, Robert de Puleston, of the Emral family in 
Worthenbury, a name often occurring in connection with our local affairs, 
and in this case also among the chief gentlemen of the time, though their 
evidence does not seem in the result to have availed for Mons. Robert le 
Grosvenor, who afterwards threw over all his witnesses, and acknowledged 
himself in the wrong to get excused the costs, when judgment went 
against him. 

Rob’t le Pulisdon’ del age xxviij anz & pluys jurr admys & diligentement exaie 
si les ditz armes cestassavoir dazure ove un bend dore apptynent de droyt a monf Robert 
le Grosveno r dit q oil. R. coment qil ceo conust dit qil ad oie des g“"ntz & ancieins gentz 
as queux il dona credence q un Gilbart le Grosvesno 1- vient en le conte de Cestre ovesq 
Hugh le Louf prim cont de Cestre aj?s le darrien Conquest Denglet?re et le dit Gilbart 
porta les ditz armes & tous ces successor jusqes au monf Robt qore est lynialment descen- 
dantz & ceo pesiblement & quietement tanc^ al cest f>sent debat moeve & nad unques oie 
de la cont^ire. Dit auxi le dit jurr qil ad vieu sovent foithz aunciens cbartres & muni¬ 
mentz p les ancestres du dit monf Robt ove sealx ensealez des les ditz armes eng“~ves en 
cere. Et auxi dit le dit jurr q publik vois & fame ad este & est en le conte de Cestre & 
au?s lieux pcheinz q les armes dazure ove uu bende dore apptyneront et apptynent a 
monf Robt avantdit & a ses auncestres apptynerent dauncien temps come desuys est depose. 
—Page 258. 

The treaty which John de Hanmer contracted the year after the battle 
of Shrewsbury with Jacques de Bourbon * and others, on the part of Owen 
Glyndwr, with the Trench King, against Henry of Lancaster, runs as 
follows :— 


* Jacques de Bourbon was the proprietor of the Chateau of Dangu, in Normandy, where 
the race-horse Gladiateur, winner of the Derby in 1865, beating all our English horses, was bred; 
however, he was an English horse as much as a Norman one, like the knights and nobles of 
ancient days. 







OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


21 


Treaty, contracted on the part of Owen Glyndwr, by his Envoys, 
Griffith Yonge, his Chancellor, and John Hanmer, his brother- 
in-law, son of Sir David Hanmer, Knight, with King Charles VI. 
of Erance, A.D. 1401.* 


[From a copy at Bettisfield of the original at the Hotel (le Soubise, Paris.] 

Oicynus Dei gracia princeps Wallie universis has litteras nostras inspecturis 
salutem. Noverit universitas vestra nos litteras patentes infrascriptas ligam et con- 
federacionem inter illustrissimum principem dominion Karolum Dei gracia Francorum 
regem et nos per procuratores suos et nostros in hac parte initas et contractas continentes 
recepisse in hec verba. Nos Jacobus de Borbonio comes Marchie procurator et nuncius 
specialis serenissimi principis domini mei metuendissimi domini Karoli Dei gracia Fran¬ 
corum regis, et nos Grifinus Yonge f decretorum doctor cancellarius et Johannes de 
Hanmer scutifer consanguinei ambaxatores procuratores et nuncii speciales illustris et 
metuendissimi domini nostri Owyni principis Walliarum prout de potestatibus et pro- 
curatoriis utrique nostrum datis per duos nostros superaneos plene constat per litteras 
patentes ipsorum dominorum quarum tenores inferius sunt inserti ut infrascripta 
predictis dominis specialiter depputati et commissi. Notum facimus universis quos 
virtute mandatorum dictorum dominorum nostrorum regis et principis et potestatum 
per eos nobis attributarum et daturum de et super ligis confederacionibus et amicitiis 
inter ipsos duos regem et principem iniendis et firmandis invicem convenimus in cunctis 
capitulis seu articulis continentibus formam que sequitur et tenorem. Primo quod ipsi 
domini rex et princeps erunt amodo ad invicem conjuncti confederati uniti et legati 
vinculo veri federis et vere amicitie certeque et bone unionis potissime contra Henricum 
de Lancastria utriusque ipsorum adversarium et hostem, suosque adherentes et fautores. 
Item quod alter ipsorum dictorum honorem et commodum alterius volet prosequetur ac 
eciam procurabit, dampnaque et gravamina que ad unius noticiam venerint per dictum 
Henricum ejusque complices adherentes et fautores aut alios quoscumque alteri inferenda 


* Three years before this. 3rd Henry IV. 1401, Owen Glyndwr seems to have been of 
a mind to treat with King Henry; see Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vol. i. 
p. 175: “ Item de savoir Fentencion et volontee du Hoy quel traitie lui plest q soit fait ovesques 
Oweyn de Gleyndourdy pur lui reamesner a l’obeissance roiale consideree le bon entente eu quel 
ycelui Oweyn est a present de ce faire et queux psones serront assignez pour trater ovesq lui.” 

t There is a Griffith Yonge, descended from our forefather Iorwerth Voel, mentioned among 
the Flintshire pedigrees relating to Hanmer parish in Sir Samuel Meyrick’s book. This one was 
Archdeacon of St. Asaph according to Browne Willis’s Survey. I think he belonged to a family 
long settled at Croxton. Morgan le Yonge, probably of the same family, gave testimony for 
Grosvenor in the case just mentioned. 


G 


22 


A MEMORIAL 


Free trade be¬ 
tween the sub¬ 
jects of either 
party. 


Settlement of 
disputes aris¬ 
ing. 


impedient bona fide. Alter quoque ipsorum apud alterum aget et faciet ea omnia et 
singula que per bonum verum et fidum amicum bono vero et fido amico agi et fieri debent 
et pertinent fraude et dolo cessantibus quibuscumque. Item si et quociens alter eorum 
sciverit vel cognoverit prefatum Henricum de Lancastria seu adherentes aut fautores suos 
aliquid gravaminis sive dampni procurare vel machinari contra alium ipse sibi quam citius 
commode fieri poterit ea significabit et ipsum de et super his advisabit ut adversus malicias 
suas prout ei visum fuerit sibi valent providere. Soliciti quoque erunt quilibet ipsorum 
dictorum impedire gravamina et dampna predicta bona fide. Item quod quilibet duorum 
predictorum nullatenus pacietur quod aliquis subditorum suorum det faciat aut procuret 
dicto Henrico de Lancastria fautoribusve aut adherentibus suis auxilium vel consilium 
aliquod seu favorem nec quod ipsum juvent cum ipsius stipendiis neque eciam sine 
stipendiis contra aliquem eorumdem dominorum. Quod si contra facere presumerent 
taliter punientur quod ceteris cedet in exemplum. Item quod aliquis dominorum regis et 
principis predictorum non faciet seu capiet treugas nec faciet pacem cum dicto Henrico 
Lancastrie quin alter si voluerit comprehendatur in ipsis treugis sive pace nisi in eisdem 
treugis vel pace renuerit sive noluerit comprehendi. Et de qua voluntate seu recusatione 
constabit illi qui dictas treugas sive pacem tractare voluerit infra mensem postquam alter! 
treugas seu pacem predictas significaverit per suas patentes litteras suo sigillo sigillatas. 
Item quod omnes subditi regni Francie cum eorum navigiis et mercimoniis sive mercanciis 
rebus et bonis quibuscumque recipientur et recolligentur ac pacientur morarn facere sine 
fraude in omnibus terris et portubus subditis dicto principi Walliarum et eciam omnes 
subditi prefati domini principis cum eorum navigiis et mercimoniis sive mercanciis rebus 
et bonis quibuscumque recipientur et recolligentur pacienturque moram facere in omnibus 
terris et portubus regni Francie sine fraude dum tamen subditi hinc et hinc inde habeant 
litteras testimonials sub sigillis dominorum predictorum seu justitiariorum aut officiari- 
orum suorum de et super subjectione et fidelitate eorundem confectas. Item quod si 
discordia violencia pugna rixa spoliacio vel alia quevis injuria in mari sive in terra inter 
subditos dictorum dominorum quod absit comittatur seu oriri contigerit causeque super 
hoc emergent amicabiliter secundum merita eorumdem et locorum existencium ubi 
premissa committentur per dominos utriusque partis vel justitiarios et officiarios suos 
ad quos pertinebit tractentur et per eos commissa reformentur discordieque predicte 
pacifientur. Item quod quocienscumque alter prefatorum dominorum pro parte alterius 
fuerit requisitus confederaciones predictas sic per eorum procurators statutas et initas 
tenebitur per suas litteras cum commissionibus debitis ratificari confirmare ac eciam 
validare. Item quod quelibet pars procuratorum predictorum promittet et jurabit in 
animam domini sui tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis quod confederaciones et lige contente 
in articulis supradictis per ipsos dominos et eorum subditos firmiter bona fide tenebuntur. 
Ab istis autem confederacionibus et ligis excipientur pro parte dictorum dominorum 
nostrorum regis et principis omnes illi qui racione gentis seu subjectionis dum tamen subditi 
prefati Henrici Lancastrie non existant aut pretextu ligarum precedentium erunt sibi an tea 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


23 


federati. Que quidem capitula nos Jacobus de Borbonio comes Marchie necnon et 
Griffinus Yonge et Johannes de Hammer procurators et nuncii supradicti dominorum 
nostrorum regis Francorum et principis Walliarum predictorum nominibus rata et grata 
habentes propria omnia que et singula in eis et quolibet ipsorum contenta et declarata 
alter alteri quisque videlicet pro suo dominorum nostrorum predictorum et nomine ipsius 
et pro ipso promittimus et bona fide juramusque in animas eorundem dominorum 
nostrorum ad sancta Dei evangelia per nos et utrumque nostrum tacta bene et fideliter 
tenere attendere et complere ac eciam firmiter et inviolabiliter observare. In quorum 
omnium et singulorum fidem et testimonium presentes litteras seu presens publicum 
instrumentum fieri et duplicari et per notarios publicos infrascriptos publicari man- 
davimus et sigillorum nostrorum una cum signis et subscriptionibus dictorum nota- 
riorum publicorum fecimus appensione muniri. Tenor vero litterarum procuratori- 
arum dicti domini nostri Francorum regis sequitur et est talis : Carolus Dei gracia Fran¬ 
corum rex universis presentes litteras inspecturis Salutem. Notum facimus quod nos 
de fidelitate diligentia et industria dilectorum et fidelium consanguinei et consiliari- 
orum nostrorum Jacobi de Borbonio comitis ]\Iarchie et Johannis episcopi Carnotensis 
plenissime confidentes ipsos facimus constituimus nominamus et eligimus procurators 
nostros generales et certos nuncios speciales et eorumdem quemlibet insolidum ita quod non 
sit melior conditio possidentis et quod unus eorum incepit alter prosequi valeat et finire ad 
tractandum nomine nostro et pro nobis cum dilectis nostris magistro Griffino Yonge et 
Johanne de Hanmer consanguineis magnifici et potentis Owyni principis Walliarum et 
ejus ambaxiatoribus et nunciis habentibus ad infra scripta a dicto principe potestatem per 
litteras ipsius principis sigillo suo sigillatas ligas confederaciones et amicitias perpetuas 
vel ad tempus inter nos ex una parte et dictum principem Walliarum ex altera prout 
eisdem procuratoribus utriusque partis videbitur faciendum de et super ipsis ligis confe- 
deracionibus et amicitiis et de modis ipsorum convenientibus ipsasque cum illis modis 
convencionibus et promissionibus de quibus ipsi procuratores utriusque partis invicem 
convenient firmandas et coneludendas et quodcumque licitum et debitum juramentum in 
animam nostram necnon quamcumque securitatem ad hoc necessariam querendum • 
inveniendum prestandum atque dandum similesque a parte dicti principis querendum 
recipiendum acceptandum. Dantes et concedentes dictis procuratoribus nostris et eorum 
cuilibet insolidum plenam generalem et liberam potestatem et mandatum speciale premissa 
et generaliter omnia et singula faciendi gerendi exercendi et expediendi que circa ea et 
eorum dependences necessaria fuerint et quomodolibet oportuna et que nos faceremus et 
facere possemus si presentes ad hoc personaliter interessemus eciamsi mandatum exigerent 
magis speciale promittentes bona fide ratum gratum et firmum habere quidquid per 
predictos procuratores nostros et eorum quemlibet in solidum in premissis et circa 
premissa actum factumque fuerit ac eciam firmatum et conclusum sub ypotheca et obli- 
gatione omnium bonorum nostrorum presentium et futurorum. In cnjus rei testimonium 
nostrum presentibus litteris fecimus apponi sigillum. Datum Parisiis die xiiii Junii anno 


14 th June, 
1404. 


24 


A MEMORIAL 


10th May, 
1404.' 


14th July. 


Domini Millesimo quadringentesimo quarto et regni nostri xxiiii 0 . Item sequitur tenor 
litterarum procuratoriarum dicti domini principis Walliarum in hec verba : Owynus Dei 
gracia princeps Wallie universis has litteras nostros inspecturis Salutem. Noveritis quod 
propter affectionem et sinceram dilectionem quas erga nos et subditos nostros illus- 
trissimus princeps dominus Karolus eadem gracia Francorum rex hactenus gessit et sui 
gracia indies gerit sibi et suis prout merito ad hoc tenemur adherere desideramus. 
Quapropter magistrum Griffinum Yonge decretorum doctorem cancellarium nostrum et 
Johannem de Hanmer consanguineos nostros predilectos nostros veros et legitimos pro- 
curatores factores negociatores gestores et nuncios speciales facimus ordinamus et con- 
stituimus per presentes dantes et concedentes eisdem procuratoribus nostris et eorum 
utrique pro se et in solidum potestatem generalem et mandatum speciale, ita quod non 
sit melior conditio occupantis sed quod unus eorum incepit alter eorundem prosequi 
valeat, mediare et finire pro nobis ac nomine nostro de et super liga perpetua vel 
temporali cum prefato illustrissimo principe tractandi ipsainque ligam ex parte nostra 
iniendi faciendi et firmandi ac quodcumque licitum juramentum in ea parte necessarium 
in animam nostram prestandi litterasque obligatorias hanc ligam continentes faciendi et 
quamcumque aliam securitatem in ea parte forte necessariam pro nobis inveniendi et 
prestandi necnon consimilem securitatem in materia premissa necessariam a prefato 
illustrissimo principe domino Karolo Dei gracia Francorum rege ex parte sua nobis 
faciendam querendi et recipiendi, capitulaque omnia et singula faciendi exereendi et 
expediendi que in premissis et circa ea necessaria fuerint seu quomodolibet oportuna 
etiamsi mandatum exigant speciale et que nos facere possimus si personaliter huic 
tractatu interessemus, predictis vero procuratoribus nostris et eorumque utroque rem ratam 
habere judicio sisti et judicatum solvi sub ypotheca et obligatione omnium bonorum 
nostrorum promittimus et caucionem exponimus per presentes. In cujus rei testimonium 
has litteras nostras fieri fecimus patentes. Data apud Dolegelle x die mensis Maii anno 
Domini Millesimo quadringentesimo quarto et principatus nostri quarto. Actum et 
datum Parisiis in domo habitationis magnifici viri Domini Ernaudi de Corbeya militis 
cancellarii Francie anno Domini Millesimo quadringentesimo quarto indictione duodecima 
die xiii mensis Julii presentibus dicto domino cancellario Francie necnon reverendis in 
Christo patribus et dominis dominis Philippo Noriomenti, Petro Meldensi et Johanne 
Atrebatensi episcopis ac etiam magnifico et potenti Ludovico de Borbonio comite 
Yindocmensi nobilibusque viris dominis Roberto de Braquemon.t et Roberto Damille 
militibus dicti serenissimi principis regis Francorum catnbellonis testibus ad premissa 
vocatis. Ego Johannes de Sanctis Belvasensis diocesis apostolica et imperiali auctori- 
tatibus perpetuus notarius prefati et domini nostri Francorum regis notarius et secretarius 
premissis omnibus et singulis dum sicut permittitur agerentur et fierent per dominos 
procuratores superius nominatos una cum subscriptis testibus presens fui eaque fieri vidi et 
audivi ad requestam et de consensu ipsorum dictorum procuratorum ut huic presenti publico 
instrumento super his confecto et super eadem forma verborum dupplicato quod scribi et 




OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


25 


grossari per alium feci pluribus aliis negociis occupatus, collatione per me facta cum notario 
publico infra scripto de originalibus litteris procuratoriis supra insertis cum eodem presenti 
publico instrumento publicando me subscripti et signum meum apposui consuetum. Et 
ego Benedictus Comme clericus Assaven. diocesis publicus auctoritate apostolica notarius 
premissis omnibus et singulis dum sicut permittitur per dictos dominos procuratores 
agerentur et fierent una cum magnilicis dominis testibus ac venerabili viri notario supra- 
dicto presens interfui eaque sic fieri vidi et audivi et ideo hoc presens publicum instru- 
menturn per alium me aliunde occupato fideliter scriptum ad requisitionem et de consensu 
eorumdem dictorum procuratorum duplicatu publicavi signoque et nomine meis solitis 
et consuetis signavi rogatus et requisitus in fidem et testimonium omnium premissorum 
Nos vero factum procuratorum nostrorum in hac parte ratum et gratum habentes ligam 
et confederacionem premissas quantum in nobis ratificamus et confirmamus per presentes. 

In cujus rei testimonium has litteras nostras fieri fecimus patentes. Datum in castro 

nostro de Clanpadarn vii° die Januarii anno Domini Millesimo quadringentesimo quinto et 7 th January 

7th January, 1405, principatus nostri sexto. 1405, 

Recognised by this alliance, and in occupation, though he held by the 
sword; and strengthened by connections in England, who contributed to 
make him formidable, even if, as may be, they did not trust his prophecies 
and his arms too much; our kinsman was for a time, nothwithstanding 
reverses, the last of the native chieftains claiming princely rank in Wales; 
and he showed then that he was a man of sense as well as of imagination, 
and had not forgotten what he learned as a student of law at Westminster, 
for he summoned a Parliament which met at Machynlleth in 1402, and 
having established a Chancellor, as has been seen, he provided himself also 
with a great Seal, the mystic attributes of which instrument must have suited 
him exactly. The engraving annexed is from a sulphur cast of the only 
remaining impression of it in the Hotel de Soubise at Paris. 

Our country, gasping at these treaties across the sea, and with heaps 
of grey ashes where church and house once stood, was but a war-wasted 
one at this time. Several Inquisitions were issued in the early years 
of King Henry the Pourtli to find how he could recover 20/. alleged to 
be due to the King from the estate of Sir David Hanmer, in respect of 
the arrears of the manor of Staunton in Shropshire, held by Sir David 
in King Richard’s time, during the minority of Roger Mortimer, son of 
Edmund Earl of March; but the last return to these Inquisitions states, 
as did the first, that the Welsh rebels against the King had totally wasted 
and destroyed all the lands that the King had seized, which had been 
* I am told there is another in the Vatican Library, but I know not to what it is attached. 

H 


26 


A MEMORIAL 


at the time of seizure in the hands of John de Hanmer, one of the sons 
of the aforesaid David : this appears to have been the case as far on as the 
8th Henry IV., a.d. 1407. 

In some of these tumults, or in the Wars of the Hoses which followed 
later in the century, the old church at Hanmer was probably destroyed; 
the present one is of Tudor architecture, and was begun by Richard 
Hanmer in the reign of King Henry the Seventh. Not long since, beneath 
the pavement near the entrance to the chancel, which was not built till 
the time of George I., we found two monuments of ancient days covered 
up with rubbish, and showing by their disturbed position that they no 
longer represented the funeral words, “ Ilic jacet,” with which they were 
inscribed. One with the figure and shield of a knight * bore “ Hie jaeet 
David ap Madoc ap Ririd,” in letters which unfortunately were crumbled 
and much injured by a frosty night immediately afterwards. The other 
says, “Hie jacet Griffith ap Iorwerth Voel. Orate pro anima ejus:’’ 
which request I, his remote descendant, am glad to have brought again to 
the light of day. 

The abiding settlement, however, of the sons of John de Hanmer, 
and the long descent from two of them at Hanmer, and at the Pens, show 
sufficiently that he recovered and outlasted the troubles of the wars of his 
brother-in-law. Ohtainiug his peace, as I have mentioned, 12th Henry 
IV., ad. 1411, he made a settlement, sixteen years later, 6th Henry VI., 
a.d. 1427, of his lands in the vills of Llysbedydd (Bettisfield), Iscoyd, and 
Bronington, and in the hamlet of Haulton in the said vill, and the vill of 
Halghton, and in Gredington, and of two mills, &c., &c., &c. He was 
afterwards succeeded at Hanmer by his son Griffith,! who married Ela 


* The arms on this shield do not correspond with the bearing of Philip Hanmer’s wife ; 
who, according to the Welsh pedigrees, was of the same stock ; but I think at that time various 
members of a family gave different cognisances. So with the Hebrew Patriarchs in the book of 
Genesis :—“ Naphtali is a hind let loose.” “ Dan shall be a serpent by the way, that biteth the 
horse’s heels.” “ Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf,” &c., &c. 

f Griffith was pardoned the year before by Letters Patent of Prince Henry, still in my 
possession. It will be seen that they include several other people, among them David, son of 
Ievan Hanmer, apparently a collateral relative, whom I cannot find in the pedigree, but possibly 
he is the one mentioned in William of Worcester’s Chronicle as grandsire on the mother’s side of 
Matthew Gough, a well-known soldier of the French wars of King Henry VI., whom Shakespeare 
brings on the stage, but only to be killed, as in fact he was, in Jack Cade’s rebellion, a.d. 1450. 


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OF THE PARISH OF IIANMER. 


27 


Dutton of Dutton in Cheshire ; at Haulton by his son John,* whose wife 

“ Ewenus pater Mathei Gough armigeri fuit ballivus manerii de Hanmer juxta Whitchurch 
in North Wales, et mater vocatur Ilawys, et pater ejus id est avus Mathei Gough vocatur Davy 
Hanmer.” W. IF. Chron. 

Letters Patent of Pardon for Rebellion, 11th Hen. IV. 

Henricus illustris Regis Anglic et Francie primogenitus, Princeps Wallie, Dux Acquitanie, 
Lancastrie, et Cornubie, et Comes Cestrie, locum tenens metuendissimi domini nostri Regis et 
patris in partibus Northwallie et Southwallie, omnibus ad quos presentes littere nostre pervenerint 
salutem. Sciatis quod nos auctoritate et potestate nobis per ipsum metuendissimum dominum 
nostrum Regem et patrem commissis suscepimus ad gratiam predicti domini nostri Regis et 
patris, Jenkin ap Jenkin canonicum de Bardesey, Cadogan ap Griffith, Griffith ftlium Johannis 
Hanmer, David Jilium Ievan Hanmer, LI. ap Madoc ap LI., Rys ap David ap Howell, Meredith ap 
David Yaghan, LI. ap Madoc, LI. ap Jenkin, David ap Wilcock, Madoc ap Jenkin ap Madoc, 
Hoel Saer, ( cum pluribus aliis in carta regia nominatis), et eis perdonavimus nomine ejusdem 
domini nostri regis et patris sectam pacis sue que ad ipsum dominum nostrum et patrem versus 
prefatos pertinet pro omnimodis proditionibus, insurrectionibus, rebellionibus, incendiis, feloniis, 
adkesionibus, transgressionibus, mesprisionibus et malefactis quibuscunque per ipsos Jenkin, 
Cadogan, Griffith, David (et alios) in partibus et marchiis Wallie ante hec tempora factis sive 
perpetratis, unde appellati existerint. Ac etiam utlagarie si que in ipsis hiis occasionibus fuerint, 
firmam pacem ejusdem domini regis et patris eis inde concedimus per presentes. Ita quod 
stent recte in curia dicti domini nostri regis et patris, si qui versus eos loqui voluerint de 
premissis vel aliquo premissorum. In cujus rei testimonium has literas nostras fieri fecimus 
patentes. Datum sub sigillo nostro apud Westmonasterium duodecimo die Julii anno regni dicti 
metuendissimi domini et patris nostri regis Henrici quarti post Conquestiun undecimo. 

Inrotulatum ad sessionem ten apud Flynt die post festum Beate Marie Yirginis, anno regni 

Regis Henrici quarto post Conquestum undecimo. 

» 

* John of Haulton made a feoffment of his manor there, and of his lands in Bronington and 
Gredington and elsewhere in Maelor, dated at Haulton, on the Monday before the Feast of St. 
John Baptist, 27th Henry VI. 1448. One of the witnesses was of great distinction: “His 
testibus, Ric’ le Strange Milite dno de Knokyn, Johanne Talbot milite filio et herede Johannis 
Comitis Salop’, Ranulpho Brereton Ann’, Griffino Kynaston Arm’, Rogero Puleston Arm’, Rico 
Yonge de Croxton, et mxxltis aliis; the second witness is “ Young John Talbot,” of Shakespeare’s 
play, and of the field of Chatillon, where he fell with his father 1453. John of Haulton’s house 
was burned to the ground by John Duke of Norfolk and Lord Powis, he having gone over to the 
Lancastrian side 7th January, 14G3 ; afterwards, 22nd April, the same year, 4th Edw. IV.. he 
submitted to that King, and swrnre allegiance to him at Blackmere. He was one of the persons 
who, 1st Edw. IV , were petitioned against in Parliament for holding Harlech Castle against the 
King, “ to the use and behove of hym that he calleth his soverayn ford Henry Sixt.” (Rolls of 
Parliament vol. v. p. 483.) “ Shewen unto your grete wisdomes the pore tenaunts and commynes 
of the ground of North Wales that where many and divers of them have been daily taken pri- 



28 


A MEMORIAL 


was Ankareta daughter of Sir Thomas Barre* by Alice sister of John 
Talbot the first Earl of Shrewsbury; at the Eens by his son Edward, who 
married Margaret, daughter of Morys ap Ievan Getliyn of the line of 
Einion Evell, son of Madoc ap Meredith, Prince of Powis; at Bettisfield 
by Bichard who married Joan Tudor, of Penmynydd. At ITanmer, 
Richard was the son of Griffith, and married Margaret Kynaston of 
Hordley, and their household coat on stained glass was long in a window 
of Ranmer Church, where I shall place it again, as I hope, this summer. 
Sir Thomas Ranmer, who was a Knight Banneret of the Erench journeys 
of Kiug Henry VIII., was their son. 

At the Eens, Griffith! was the son of Edward, and his wife was Mar¬ 
garet Lloyd of Llwyn-y-Maen, whose coat-armour was the Imperial eagle, J 
given to one of her ancestors by the Emperor for some feat of arms against 
the Turk; as I find in the curious (if in correct) hook of pedigrees by 
Reynolds of Oswestry. Their son was Jenkin Ilanmer of the Eens, who 
married Margaret Dymock of Willington, Richard before mentioned 
was the rebuilder of Hanmer church, the stone for which was quarried 
near Tlireapwood, on the other side of the long windings of the "YVycli 
Valley. Noth withstanding this he had a dispute, I do not find on what 
grounds, with his cousin William of Haulton, about the nomination to the 
vicarage, which was the subject of the following award a.d. 1488, 4th 
Henry VII. :— 

soners and put to fine and ransome as it were in land of war, and many and divers of them daily 
robbed and spoiled of their goods and cattle by David ap Ievan ap Eyryon and many others of 
that kindred, and by John Hanmer, Morys ap David ap Griffith, and several others .... Pray 
that the said misdoers shall deliver up the Castle of Harleigh, and render themselves at the town 
of Caernarvon, on a day certain, or be attainted as traitors.” This John Hanmer of Haulton died 
Thursday, 16th March, 1480. Hengwrt MSS. 

* 1 think it possible that this family of Barre, who had lands in Herefordshire, may also have 
had some near Barre Mere and Barre Hill, in Bickley township, in Malpas, which would bring 
them within the range of the Talbots at Blackmere, but I have no proof of what is a simple 
conjecture. 

f Griffith Vychan Hanmer of Fens died 31st March, a.d. 1500. Hengwrt MSS. communi¬ 
cated by my friend W. E. Wynne, Esq , their present owner. 

f Chaucer gives the Imperial blazon correctly, as it was borne by these Lloyds of Llyn-y- 
Maen, in the Monk’s Tale— t 

“ The feld of snow with the egle of blak therein.” 

The terms, it is true, are not exactly heraldic. 






OF THE PARISH OF nANMER. 


29 


Award of Sir William Stanley,* Knt. K.G., between Wii.liam and 

Richard Hanmer. 

To all crysten people to whom this present wrytyng indented shall come, William 
Stanley, knt., Chamberlayne to the King our sovereign lord, sendeth greeting: Where 
controversy and debate late hath byn hadde and moved betwene William Hanmer, Es- 
quier, of the one parte, and Richard Hanmer, Esqueir, of the oder parte, of and for the 
nomination to the Vicarage of the church of Hanmer, in the countie of Flynte, and for a 
dede of graunte of the nomination to the said vicarage, for the appeasynge whereof the 
said parties have submitted themselves, and either of them is bounden to order to obey 
the awarde and judgment of me in the same; Whereupon I, takynge upon me to awarde 
in that behalf, as well by the advyce of my counsell, as by the assent and desyre of the 
same parties, awarde, ordayne, and deme of and upon the premysses in the forme ensuynge 
(that is to say), that the said Richard shall name to the Abbot of Hamonde at this present 
avoydance of the said vycarage such a pryste and none oder as the said William shall 
appovnte and name to hym, except P. Morys late named by the said William to the same; 
and if the same pryste for any resonable cause be refused by the Ordinarie in that behalf, 
that then the said Richard shall eftsoons name to the said Abbott such oder pryste as the 
said William shall appoynte and name to the said Richard, and so as ofte as nede shall be 
as for thys present avoydance only, unto the tyme one of the same prystes so appoynted 
and named by the said William be admytted, instituted, and inducted into the said 
church, and on thys I awarde and deme that the nomination of and to the said vycarage 
be graunted and made sure to the said Richard and to the heyres of his body comynge, 
and for defaute of such heyres to remayne or come to the said William and to the heyres 
of his body comynge, and for defaut of such issu to the right heyres of John Planmer, 
grandfather of the said Richard and William, in such forme and by such way as shall be 
advysed by the counsell of the same Richard and William, and that eyther of them cause 
his counsell to applye and do that in hym and his counsell is convenient and resonable to 
be done to the execution of the same, at the indyfferent costes of the same Richard and 
William, and that the said graunte and suretye thus made, the said William resonablye 
required shall delyver to the said Richard a dede of graunte of the said nomination made 
by the predecessors of the Abbot of Hamonde to John Hanmer, auncestor of the said 
Richard and William: In witness whereof to the one part of this my present awarde 
indented remayning with the said Richard, as well the said Richard as the said William 
Hanmer have put their seales, and to the oder part of the same awarde indented remayning 
with the said William Hanmer, as well the said William as the same Richard have put 
their seales the last day of November the iiij year of the reyne of Kynge Henry the vij th . 

* This was the well-known and historic Sir William Stanley of Bosworth Field, beheaded in 
1494 by King Henry the Seventh, whom he had crowned there. The remains or site of his 
Castle of Holt were purchased by the second Lord Kenyon, and belong now to his successors. 

I 


30 


A MEMORIAL 


William Hanmer, mentioned in this Agreement, was the son of John 
of Haulton, descended by his mother Ankareta Barre and his grandmother 
Alice Talbot through Stranges and Pitzalans, and Henry and Edmond 
Earls of Lancaster, from King Henry the Third and his Queen Eleanor or 
Provence: all of which, though it comes to me from the Heralds’ Office, I 
do not mention for the sake of numbering royal progenitors, but rather for 
that of the Proven 9 al poets, and the forefathers of Queen Eleanor.* She 
was one of those four daughters of Baymond Berenger whom Dante men¬ 
tions, and how each became a Queen:— 

Quattro figlie ebbe e ciascuna regina 
Ramondo Berlingbieri, e cio gli fece 
Romeo persona umile e peregrina. 

Par. 6 th Canto. 

The children of Bichard Hanmer, the other party to this arbitration 
and agreement, and Margaret Kynaston his wife had the like descent, but 
through another line; she was fifth in descent from Joan Plantagenet, f- 
mother of King Bichard the Second, by her marriage with Sir Thomas 
Holland. We remembered the name of Eleanor in those days. In the 
next generation Eleanor Hanmer, daughter of Sir Thomas Hanmer, 
Knight Banneret, granddaughter of Bicliard, was contracted in her child¬ 
hood to be married at age of consent to William, eldest son of Jenkin 
Hanmer of the Pens, and from this marriage we who are now living are 
lineally descended. 

The following is part of the contract which Sir Thomas, who seems 
to have been of a patriarchal turn of mind, made for the marriage of his 
daughter, or one of her sisters if she should fail, with their kinsfolk at 
the Pens, including, if William should fail, his next and other brothers:— 

Extract from Indenture concerning the marriage of William Hanmer, 
son and heir of Jenkin Hanmer, Esq. of the Pens, with Eleanor, 
daughter of Sir Thomas Hanmer, of Hanmer, Knt., 14-th Octr. 11th 
Henry VIII. 

* Tlie line of John of Haulton fell into our existing one by the marriage of Katherine Pules- 
ton, descended from Jane Hanmer of Haulton, with Thomas Hanmer of the Fens, 1621. 

t Joan Plantagent, Countess of Kent, daughter of Edmund Earl of Kent, son of King 


OF THE PARISH OF IIANMER. 


31 


This Indenture, made the fourteenth day of October, in the eleventh year of the 
reign of King Henry the Eighth, between Thomas Hanmer, Knight, upon the one part, 
and Jenkyn Hanmer, Esquire, of the other part, Witnesseth that the said Jenkin is 
agreed, covenanteth, and granteth by these presents unto the said Sir Thomas, that 
William Hanmer, son and heir apparent of the said Jenkin, shall marye and take to 
wife Eleanor daughter of the said Sir Thomas Hanmer, before the feast of Pentecoste 
which shall be in the year of our Lord God a thousand five hundred and four and 
twenty, at the reasonable request and appointment of the said Sir Thomas, if the said 
Eleanor thereunto will agree, and the law of Holy Church will it suffer ; and in like 
wise the said Sir Thomas Hanmer covenanteth and promiseth by these presents that the 
said Eleanor shall marry and take to husband the said William before the said feast of 
Pentecost, as is above rehearsed, if the said William thereunto will agree, and the law 
of Holy Church will it suffer. Also the said Jenkyn is agreed and granteth by these 
presents that if the said Eleanor happen to decease before marriage between the said 
William and the said Eleanor had, that then the said William or another his son and 
heir apparent if he any such shall have, if the said William be deceased, shall marry 
and take to wife Jane an other daughter of the said Sir Thomas, and if it fortune the 
said Jane to decease before marriage between her and the said William, or any other 
son and heir apparent of the said Jenkyn had, that then the said William or an other son 
and heir apparent of the said Jenkin, if he any such shall have, shall marry and take to 
wife Katherine daughter of the said Sir Thomas, at his reasonable appointment and 
request if the said Katherine be not married and will thereto assent, and the law of 
Holy Church will it suffer, and so of any other son and heir apparent of the said Jenkyn, 
and any other daughter of the said Sir Thomas unmarried, until the state of matrimony 
amongst them be perfectly accomplished and take effect. And also the said parties be 
agreed and grant by these presents, either to other, that they shall cause their said 
children to consent and agree to the said matrimony at their lawful age, &c. &c. &c. 

All the lands of William Hanmer in England or Wales or the 
Marches of VV ales were settled on this marriage. 

It was the manner of those days to keep hards about a hall, perhaps 
to send the guests to sleep at night with their songs. Sir Thomas appears 
to have had one who addressed to him some verses of which I have found 

Edward I. married, before the Black Prince, Sir Thomas Holland, K.G. ; her daughter Eleanor 
married Edward Charlton Lord Powis; Joan Charlton married Sir John Grey ; Henry Grey Lord 
Tankerville married Antigone, a daughter of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester ; Lady Elizabeth 
Grey married Sir Roger Kynaston ; Margaret Kynaston married Richard Hanmer of Hanmer. 
This Margaret Kynaston was sister of Humphrey Kynaston the wild, a kind of moss-trooper and 
outlaw, of whom many legends more or less authentic are yet told in Shropshire. The place 
where he latterly sheltered himself at Nesscliff is shewn as Kynaston’s cave. 


32 


A MEMORIAL 


among my papers a translation by a distinguished Welsh scholar, and, on 
account of some local allusions, I was inclined to reprint them here; hut, 
on the whole, I think their Welsh utterance, which would not he under¬ 
stood hy my readers, suits them better than a Saxon one, and a few lines 
in praise of the hospitality of his patron will be quite sufficient:— 

Your will is still to excel, knight of a brave discretion ; 

Three ages your name has been loved, and still it upholds the country ; 

The wise man makes resort, and the simple, aye to your dwelling. 

You have built there a house, it stands at the point of a dingle, 

It is an eagle’s nest, the walls of the house of Ririd, 

The poor man knows in his heart, if it be close or open, 

Gates there are, but gates that know not the hand of a porter. 

&c. &c. &c. &c. 

The original may be regarded as one proof that Welsh was commonly 
understood in our parish as late as the time of King Henry VIII. The 
house which Sir Thomas built was battered down in the civil wars of 
Charles I., when every place which had garden wall and courtyards was 
liable to be held as a position.* Another was afterwards built on the 
same site, which I took down myself, not seeing the use of having two 
manor-houses at Bettisfield and at Hanmer in sight of each other. Sir 
Thomas Hanmer, who had been distinguished by the favour of King 
Henry in the field in Trance, was one day disturbed by finding himself 
run in the suspicion of his sovereign upon the following formidable com¬ 
munication : 

Acts of Privy Council, 33 Hen. VIII, 1541 : 

Upon certayne informations exhibited ageynst S r Thomas Hanmer, knight, a letter 
was directed to the President of the Cownsellf in the marches of Wales for the triall of the 
truth thereof, with comawndement that in case th’information sholde be fownde trew, he 
sholde apprehende him, and sende him uppe to the Counsell. 

And in case the matter sholde be founde forgid, yett for disobeying a precept the 
sayde Hanmer had to appere here, the sayde President sholde take sureties of him, for 
his appearance, the first day of next terme. 

* This is an intelligible reason why so many gentlemen’s houses which were not embattled, 
and not even built of stone, are mentioned in the records of the Civil War as held for King or 
Parliament. The story of the battle of Waterloo shows what use was made at Hougoumont of 
the same sort of place, even against the armaments of that period. 

f Rowland Lee, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, was at this time President of the March, 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


33 


At Westminster, 24th February, 33 Henry VIII. 1542. 

S r Thomas Hanmer, knight, having bene accused of sondry things, whereof! soom 
war no less than high treason, for that itt both appered the same to have been committed 
rather by ignorance than malice, and yett before the general pardon, was, after a good 
exhortation, discharged. 

Thus it appears that we did not escape the surveillance of King 
Henry VIII.; hut, though more than one act of his Highness’s Grace may 
have evoked speeches in country houses capable of unfavourable representa¬ 
tion unless explained, he was not hard on Welshmen. His pacification of 
Wales occurred without any trouble in Hanmer parish, and it is one of the 
most remarkable works of Government that English history has to shew. 

Three years afterwards, 10th Eeb. 1545, Sir Thomas Hanmer died, as 
I find it stated in the pedigree drawn up with much research and particu¬ 
larity by John Charles Brooke, Somerset Herald, in my grandfather’s 
time. He married twice ; his first wife, from whose daughter we descend, 
was Jane daughter of Sir Bandal Brereton of Malpas, Knt.; the second, 
who left no issue, was Matilda daughter of Sir Piers Newton, Knt. By 
the first his son and successor was Sir Thomas Hanmer, knighted at 
Musselburgh in Scotland, and who married Katherine Saltier* of Oswestry, 
a very considerable heiress.'}- With him we may pass into the comfortable 
region of parish registers, where his death, as I shall afterwards note, is 
recorded in 1583. 

We did not profit, as many did, by tbe spoils of the religious houses; 
such of the possessions of the Abbey of Haughmond as came into our hands 
were bought in the market from the grantees, and, with the exception of the 


and the fourth who had held that office since the time of its institution by King Henry VII. 
a.d. 1502. He was President from 1535 to 1543, when, as I find in vol. iii. of Mr. Gough 
Nichols’s “ Herald and Genealogist,” he died, and was buried at Shrewsbury. Mr. Froude 
attributes to him a great part in the pacification of the Marches ; one of his most active agents, 
not to say delators, is said to have been one Walker priest of Prees, on the other side of the Fens, 
and of Whixall Moss. 

* I have lately found the contracts for each of these marriages, framed like that of William 
and Eleanor Hanmer, already given ; that with Jane Brereton is dated 7th November, 5th King 
Henry VII., referring to a previous contract in 1486, the first year of the King; the other with 
Margaret Saltier bears date 15th April, 9th King Henry VIII. a.d. 1518. 

f Her estate evaporated in Charles the First’s civil war. 


K 


34 


A MEMORIAL 


rectorial tithes of the parish, held by that house since the time of King 
Henry III., they were of small account. The monks appear to have had 
a rectorial house in the meadow below the hank on which the present farm 
of Hanmer Hall stands; * and in Bronington there are some lands called 
the Abbey Field. A tradition also connects with monks of some sort the 
wild ground called the Usk Bank, on the borders of the Fens Moss ; and, if 
that were so, it is likely that part of their business was to tend the cattle 
pasturing in the wood. I have seen some thus occupied before now among 
the hills in Italy. 

The parish registers, however they may have been kept at first, 
perhaps disappeared in the grim reign of Queen Mary. I do not know 
how we accommodated ourselves to the new state of things which they 
represented, nor whether the treason imputed to old Sir Thomas had 
anything to do with doubts about the King’s supremacy. The registers 
were all carefully repaired and rebound a few years since, and begin with 
us in 1563, the 5tli year of Elizabeth, when William Hanmer, afterwards Sir 
William of the Fens, was christened, and among the entries afterwards in 
1570 is the burial of old William Hanmer of the Fens, grandfather of the 
foregoing, and in 1583 of his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Hanmer, each of 
them mentioned as “ worthy gentlemen, the succour and comfort of the 
countrye.” This Sir Thomas, whom I will call of Musselhorough Field, 
to distinguish him among the others, was horn, according to the Hengwrt 
MSS., which are in the handwriting of Griffith Hiraethog, on the Feast of 
St. Bride, 1536. In 1589 William Hanmer of Fens, his son, “ was worship- 
fully buried,” and in 1599 Eleanor the wife of William Hanmer of the Fens, 
mother of the last-named William, surviving him ten years, was buried 
7th July. This was Eleanor daughter of Sir Thomas, and it seems likely 
that, if her marriage contract in 1519, 11th Henry .VIII., was made when 


* I find it mentioned in a memorandum, 5th January, 1614, caused by a dispute about the 
site of the ancient rectory between the families of Hanmer and the Fens, each of which had pur¬ 
chased it, that many years before Sir Thomas Hanmer lent the house to one Randolph Phillips, 
priest, vicar of Hanmer, which occasioned the meadow where it stands to be called the Vicarage 
Meadow; and that it never belonged to the vicar, but he was tenant thereunto under Sir Thomas 
Hanmer. Afterwards Sir Thomas gave the materials of the house to his brother John Hanmer 
of Bradenheath, who pulled it down and built with it on his own land. Sir Thomas bought it 
about the beginning of Queen Elizabeth. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


35 


she was towards ten years old, she must, at her death in 1599, have been 
about the age of ninety; one more year would have brought her into the 
seventeenth century; little household words and familiar incidents of 
which have been repeated to me in my youth by aged tenants, who had 
heard them from their forefathers servants in the family. 

In 1604 (to pass over to the house at Hanmer) Sir John Hanrner, Knt., 
one of my predecessors in the representation of Mint, was, after the way of 
those times, “ worshipfully buried.” His wife was Jane Salusburyof Lleweny. 
I have one or two hooks with his signature, particularly a very good Philip 
de Comines. He appears to have been more concerned with what we incline 
to think the common enemy, the rabbit, than might have been the case if 
he had belonged to the Parliaments of Queen Victoria and heard the 
speeches and motions of Scotch members. Though on good terms with 
his wife’s nephew (addressed in the note below), he was not with her; the 
lady, who survived him several years, lived long, separately, at Okenholt. 

Letter from Sir John Hanmer, Knt., M.P. for Plint, to his nephew 

John Salusbury, of Lleweny. 

With the remembrance of my very hearty commendations both to yourself and to my 
good niece your consort: When you wrote unto me that you could not serve my turn with 
conies at Christmas last, and withal prayed me to help you to a warrener to keep your 
warren of conies, who should as occasion served help me to conies as well as yourself, 
Now having inquired abroad, I have found out a neighbour’s son of mine own that I 
hope will serve your turn, and pleasure your friends as you shall direct, whom I have 
now sent unto you to see what entertainment you will give him, and what shall be com¬ 
mitted to his charge. So, hoping you will deal well with him, leave you to God. 

Hanmer, of February this third 1597. 

Y r very assured uncle, 

Jo. Hanmer. 

Following the pages of the register, and not doing more than to 
extract the representative ones out of other names, I come to the burial 
of Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt. 21st April, 1619. He was son of Sir John 
last mentioned, and was Member for Flintshire, and one of the Council of 
the Welsh March under Lord Compton the President, in relation to which 
capacity his arms were long painted on one of the walls at Ludlow. He 
was one of the gentlemen sent with the Earl of Derby to France in 1585 


36 


A MEMORIAL 


to invest King Henry III. with the Order of the Garter, and the portrait 
of that Earl is still at Bettisfield. His wives were Anne Talbot of Grafton, 
whose only daughter Katherine died unmarried, and Katherine Mostvn, of 
Mostyn, whose son Sir John was made a Baronet hy King James the Eirst 
the next year after his father’s death in 1620. 

In the time of this Sir Thomas there was a riot in the neighbouring 
township of Lineal,* not the first,—in another a chapel was pulled down, 
and the bell was thrown into the Mere, where, on windy nights and 
when the moon is full, it is said, even now, to give a low troubled sound 
out of the water among the belts of trees. 

The Puritan spirit was beginning to stir in those days, and the place 
newly belonged to no unimportant personage, for the owner was Lord 
Chancellor Ellesmere, then in the course of acquiring that great estate in 
Shropshire, upon which though there has not been up to this time a 
manor house, perhaps more improvements have been made than on any 
property in the district. 

I find the following note of inquiry from the Lord Chancellor to his 
loving friends Sir Thomas Hamner, Knt., and Roger Puleston, Esq., upon 
the Lineal riot:—• 

Letter from Lord Chancellor Ellesmere to Sir Thomas Hanmer 

Knt., and Roger Puleston, Esq. 

After my hearty commendations I give you thanks for the great pains you have 
taken to find out the contrivers and movers of the night riot and disorders at Lyneall. 
I find your persuasions and endeavours have been such as, if the offenders were not too 
wilful and obstinate in their resolution to conceal the procurers, you might have effected 
that discovery I desire ; But, since they continue in their stubborn and contemptuous 
silence as that they make choice rather to endure their own harm than to make the same 
known, I have no cause to pity or favour them that will not pity themselves. I never 
desired their trouble or charges, and I am sorry for that which they have already 
sustained ; and for the inclosure itself I regard it not, and therefore am not in any way 
moved with that which is done for the repairing and replanting of it. The thing I seek 
is to know the procurers, which concerneth me nearer than the value of the thing. I am 
willing to remit the offence of the actors so as they will make known the procurers and 
plotters, but without that I cannot be satisfied. The preparing and plotting of the 


* Lineal is a border corruption of Llynkir. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


37 


outrage to be done at two several times in the night season, with such number and 
multitude of men and women, some disguised, and a set hour for their meeting, with 
many other circumstances, could not be without some special person or deviser and 
setter of it. If the author will declare it I will remit all, and there shall be no farther 
proceeding against the authors or procurers, but I will accept the revealing of the 
procurers and devisers as a sufficient satisfaction, and so that being once done there 
shall no more be done : to know it only shall suffice. If that cannot be effected by your 
further travail, which I pray you once again to undertake, then I would have you to let 
the actors know that the cause against them is peremptorily to be heard the next term, 
which I doubt will be too heavy for them, and they may easily redeem it and deliver 
themselves by telling the truth. The care I have of them makes me thus to trouble you, 
and how much it importeth me to know the truth hereof, though I mean not to seek 
revenge, I leave to your good considerations, and so betake you to God, 

And rest your very loving friend, 

T. Ellesmere, Can. 

From York House, 12 Aug. 1613. 

In 1620 Death, the year before at Hanmer, again visited Fens Hall,* 

* In 1620, William Hanmer of Bettisfield, the last of the descendants of Richard Hanmer, 
younger grandson of Sir David, who was settled at that place, died and was buried at Hanmer 
on the 1st of July, leaving no children by his wife Winifred Clive, of Styche, to whom he was 
married in 1596, at our parish church. He had an elder brother Anthony, who died and was 
buried at Hanmer in 1615 ; and his widow, who was Susan Clive, sister of Winifred, in like manner 
is entered in the register ten years later, 11th February, 1625. They also had no children. 
Another brother, John, left Flintshire and was of Boroughbridge, in Yorkshire ; he had two 
daughters, who are mentioned in the Painted Book at Wynnstay, but I forget the particulars 
about them. There was a Roger Hanmer, their cousin, who appears to have settled at Marton, 
in Middle parish, in Shropshire; and to the same parish, according to Mr. Richard Gough, its 
historian, came afterwards some people who endeavoured falsely to attach themselves to the name 
and kindred of Anthony Hanmer, as to whom a letter in the Harleian MSS. No. 1971-31, 
remarkably tallies with Mr. Gough’s account. He says in his curious book, which describes the 
parish of Middle house by house :— 

“ One John Ellis, a butcher, who came from Hanmer, in Flintshire, into this parish, dwelt 
in a cottage on the south side of Middle Wood ; because he came from Hanmer, he was called 
Ellis of Hanmer, and both in the Court Rolls and in the parish register he is named John Ellis 

alias Hanmer. He had three sons, Richard, Thomas, and Abraham.Thomas was 

brought up to be a good English scholar, and then kept a petty school at Shaw'bury. Mr. Wood, 
who was then Vicar of Shawbury, and parson of Cound, employed him to read service at 
Shawbury when he was at Cound. He had a son whom he brought up to be a scholar ; he was 
sent to Oxon, and at last made doctor of divinity, and married a wife, whose maiden name was 

L 



38 


A MEMORIAL 


taking with him this time Sir William Hanmer, Knt. grandson of William 
and Eleanor, whose christening, as “ William Hanmer, son of William 

Eddowes, of a good family in Cheshire; he was parson of Marchwiel, near Wrexham, a good 
benefice, and was a good preacher, but lived a troublesome life, being always at war with his 
parishioners ; he died at Marchwiel.” 

There is an account of Richard and Abraham in the book, which agrees with registers I 
have examined. The name of the rector of Marchwiel appears by the following letter from 
himself to Randle Holmes, the herald of Chester, in the Harleian MSS., to have been Joseph. 

“ Sir,— This is the third time I have been looking for you ; my business is to desire your 
assistance in the entering my descent from the house of Hanmer. Hanmer of Marton, in the county 
of Salop, descended from Anthony Hanmer, a younger brother of that family. My ancestors of 
Middle, in the same parish, claim under them : a particular account I cannot give you —but this 
I know, that my father was a clergyman, and married a Lesley, of a Scottish extract; his son 
Thomas married a daughter of Parson Cloudy, of this city ; I married a daughter of Ralph 
Eddowes, gent., and sister to John Eddowes, of London, Esq.; my younger brother, Mr. Samuel 
Hanmer, married Dorothy Legh, a daughter of Esquire Legh of Booties in this county ; ray 
sister Mary Hanmer married George Bently, the son of Hugh Bently of Hadly, in this county. 
I am a doctor of divinity, and have an estate of £150 a-year, and a good hall house upon it, and 
am rector of Marchwiel , in the county of Denbigh. What lawful favour you show herein shall be 
acknowledged by, 

“ Sir, your friend and servant, 

“ Joseph Hanmer, Chester.” 

It is remarkable that this “ claimant,” to use a word well known of late, and who, having 
been instituted to Marchwiel in 1668, perhaps wrote his letter, which has no date, within the next 
twenty years, or before the Revolution of 1688, makes no reference to the real and well-known 
heads of the family then living, with whose name he desired to be associated, though the parish 
of Hanmer is in sight of Marchwiel, and only some five or six miles distant from it across the 
Dee. While the generation of the much more distant Marton, which he does mention, and who 
were not descended from Anthony Hanmer at all, had, according to the testimony of Mr. Gough, 
fallen into decadence by low marriages, and were unlikely to challenge the proposed transaction 
if it came to pass ; but as grandson of John Ellis, the butcher, this claimant of name and alliance 
could be no relation even to them ; he might well therefore say he could “ give no particulars.” 

The practices and devices of some low pretending “ claimants,” in my own time, who some¬ 
times in their various pretences have endeavoured to adduce the name of Richard Hanmer of 
Bettisfield, particularly when they nearly caused a public riot at Rhyl, and other names also at 
their caprice or convenience, seemed to me to justify this casual elucidation from Mr. Gough 
and the Harleian MSS. of what it may concern. The History of Middle is a very curious work ; 
it was written in 1700, and still exists in MS. but a few copies were printed by Sir Thomas 
Phillipps some years ago. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


39 


Hanmer of Fens, Esq. and of Margaret (his wife), daughter of David 
Kynaston of Crickheth,” is recorded 20th March, 1563, and whose 
marriage to Eleanour Dymock, 21th Sept. 1581, is in the same register. 
I find this latter lady mentioned in the pedigree as buried at Hanmer in 
1599, but I have without doubt attributed the entry to her predecessor 
the earlier Eleanor ; for a servant to “ my lady Hanmer of the Fens,” who 
could be no other than Sir William’s wife, is entered among the burials 
eighteen years later, in 1617, and this may he taken as evidence that her 
mistress was living about that time. A little household interest is con¬ 
nected with this question, for our family have often been not very long- 
lived, and they have been rare through whom, as in old Eleanor’s case, 
the traditions of remote times might have been personally communicated, 
of whom it might be said— 

Favoleggiava con la sua famiglia , 

De Troiani , e de Fiesole, et di Roma. 

Paradiso, Cant. xv. 

There were, till within a few years, some cottagers of mine in Broning- 
ton, and indeed their grandchildren live still upon the spot, who often told 
me they were descended from one of Sir William’s servants, and of some 
wonderful journey to London that he made, having been a running foot¬ 
man. They had some little household effects of that time among their 
stores, and were good examples of what the peasantry of this district show 
themselves to be, when, as is usually the case, they live with a few cows 
and crofts in contented and happy circumstances. Occasionally, if any 
fields are to be sold, they prove able to become freeholders.* Yet, even 
then they desire to remain where they dwelt before, and independence 

* I observe, in conversing with the common people, their peculiar but almost always correct 
use of words. A cottager, whose neighbour had a grey parrot, described it to me as “ an ancient 
bird she did not mean an old one, nor knew that parrots were long-lived ; certainly she had 
never heard of the one which Humboldt saw in South America, the sole depository of some 
words of the language of an extinct Indian tribe. She meant antique or antic, in the sense of 
some fantastic thing; and the parrot in fact, turning about its perch and whistling, was then 
performing by itself the parts of all the witches in Macbeth, where the First Witch (Act iv.^ says 
to her sisters— 

“ I’ll charm the air to give a sound, 

While you perform your antique round.” 


40 


A MEMORIAL 


only gives a new basis to their natural courtesy. I must say I hope the 
time is yet far distant when small holdings of old tenants will be 
improved from off the face of the land. It is quite unnecessary to abolish 
them, even on pretence of advanced agriculture. A field of eight acres 
properly prepared may be cultivated readily by steam ; and in these days 
of drought a moderate inclosure, covered with deeply-rooted forage plants, 
may be worth a large extent of impoverished and idle grasses. The 
swallows remember the eaves where they were bred, and come back there in 
the April days for the summer that is to come ; and we should not be less 
than these poor little birds in our power of blending the former and the 
future. Aristophanes tells us, however, that we are less, and that wisdom 
resides in birds.* “ Ask now the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee,” 
is what we may also read, upon better authority, in the Book of Job. At 
all events I think we may say that as we are glad to see the birds return¬ 
ing in their season, and to hear the woods resound with their voices, as 
they did when “ The Song of the Cuckoo ” was written by Llywarcli 
Hen, we should be pleased with the continuance and renewal of old names 
and neighbours among us. What is the Irish Land Bill but a raucous and 
Sybiline remonstrance against an opposite state of things ? 

The new generations of the family which began succession nearly 

% 

together at Hanmer and the Fens in 1619-20 enjoyed it but a short time. 
In 1621 William the eldest son of Sir William, and the fourth, one after 
another, of that name, died s. p. at his house at Cricketh, leaving his place 
to be occupied by his brother Thomas of the Fens, who was married to 
Katherine Pulestonf the same year. Their son William, whose life brings 

* See the Chorus of Birds from the Greek comedy in the excellent French translation of 
M. Eugene Fallex, 1865. It is the only one in which I could ever trace the spirit of the original. 

“ Mortels infortunes qu’on appelle des hommes, 

“ Et qui ne resemblez qu’ aux songes passagers, 

“ Ecoutez ce discours, apprenez qui nous sommes 
“ Immortels, eternels, a la terre etrangers, 

“ Libres enfans des airs, toujours beaux de jeunesse, 

“ Sur l’immense infini fixant toujours les yeux, 

“ Nous vous revelerons la celeste sagesse, 

“ L’essence des Oiseaux, l’origine des Dieux.” 

| Katherine Puleston, though she was a younger daughter, brought the manor of Moreton 




OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


41 


us to the near side of the Civil War, was christened in 1622; and in 1624 
this Thomas Hanmer, then some thirty-four years old (christened at 
Hanrner 1590), died. The same year also, 29tli of June, 22nd King James 
I., and nearly at the same age, died Sir John Hanmer, Baronet, of the 
creation of King James, son of the last-named Sir Thomas. He appears, 
though in so short a life, to have had a good deal of local reputation. 
He was member for Plint shire, one of the Council of the Marches,* and a 
leader of the Puritan party, which connection, I think, would have 
placed him rather on the side of Pairfax than of Prince Bupert, had he 
lived till the troubles of Charles I. broke out, and the most righteous 
standard that ever was raised in England was raised upon the Parlia¬ 
ment’s side. His wife was Dorothy Trevor of Trevallyn, by whom his 
eldest son was Sir Thomas Hanmer. He had also two other sons who 
died young, unmarried; one of them, John, was killed in the fight at 
Little Dean, in Gloucestershire, in the Civil War. A decree in Chan¬ 
cery concerning some unsettled affairs in 1634 between this Sir Thomas 
Hanmer and his mother describes her as Dorothy Lady Hanmer of 
Bettisfield, and her portrait is still in the house, which she afterwards 
gave up to her son, and went to live at Haulton, being then its last 
inhabitant, for it was pulled down after her time.t A plantation of oaks 
which I made inside the moat, and the moat itself, alone mark the site; 
hard by are the grass-grown traces of what came to he called “ The Old 

Say, near Drayton, into the family, and we held it for many years. Her descent from John 
Hanmer of Haulton (see p. 27) and his wife Ankareta Barre was thus:— 

William Hanmer=y=Eliz. Egerton, of Wrinehill. 

I-- "1 

Sir Edward Hanmer, knt., ob. s. p. Jane his sister=Sir Roger Puleston of Emral, 
Knt. Their son Sir Edward Puleston, Knt., married Ermine daughter of Richard Hanmer 
of Hanmer, whose son Roger married Anne Grosvenor of Eaton, whose son Thomas married 
Mary Bostock of Moreton Say, descended from the line of Sir Warren Bostock and his wife 
Hawys, daughter of Hugh Kyvelioc Earl of Chester. Katherine Puleston was the youngest 
daughter of Thomas, who was of Lightwood Hall, and his wife Mary. 

* In this capacity his arms, as well as those of his father, were in the Council Chamber at 
Ludlow, as is mentioned in Mr. Clive’s book on the history of that town, the former capital of 
the March, and still, I think, one of the most beautiful country towns in England. Lord Macaulay 
in his third chapter calls Shrewsbury the capital of the March, which it never was. 
f She died in 1656, and was buried, Nov. 14th, at Hanmer. 

M 



42 


A MEMORIAL 


Lane,” which was turned in that part, but the “ Old Lane ” was the Roman 
Ur-Iconium and Deva road. Sir Edward Hanmer of this place, son of 
"William, mentioned in the arbitration about the vicarage by Sir William 
Stanley, went in his time to Italy, and was in the conclottieri service of the 
Medici family at Elorence, and was knighted by some of them in those 
Italian wars. Sir John Hanmer’s will is dated 14th June, 1624, hut a few 
days before his death, and part of it may he given as a record of the feelings 
and opinions of that time about the feudal laws. The Bishop of St. Asaph, his 
cousin and namesake, mentioned in it, was descended from a younger brother 
of several generations hack, and settled, where the bishop lies buried now, 
in the Shropshire parish of Sellattyn. 

The following inscription, not now visible, for I believe it is covered 
by the boarded floor of a pew, is given by Mr. Browne Willis as having 
been placed to his memory :— 

“ Inter paternos cineres sepultus jacet praestantissimus olim Yir Johannes Episcopus 
Assavensis, qui cum quinguennium in Episcopatu summa cum pietate necnon incom- 
parabili assiduitate profuisset pie et feliciter obiit 23 Junii, 1629, setatis suae 55.” 

This J ohn Hanmer was the forty-fifth Bishop of St. Asaph. 

Will of Sir John Hanmer, Baronet., M.P. for Flintshire. 

In the Fame of God, Amen. The fourteenth day of June, 1624, Anno Jacobi Anglise, 
&c., vicesimo secundo, I, S r John Hanmer, of Hanmer, in the County of Flint, Baronet, 
being sickly and weak and feeble in my body, yet of good and perfect memory, I praise 
God for it, do make and ordain this my last Will and Testament, in manner and form 
following. First I recommend my soul into the hands of Almighty God, my Maker, 
and my body to be buried in the daytime, without any vain pomp or solemnity, in the 
Parish Church of Hanmer, towards the reparation whereof I bequeath five marks. Item, 
to the Poor of the same Parish I give ten pounds. Item, I give and bequeath to Thomas 
Hanmer, my Son and heir, these parcels of plate, videlt one Silver Bason and Ewer Pcell 
gilt, two Silver Flagons, one double Gilt Bowl with a cover, one double gilt Salt, one 
dozen of Gilt Spoons, and a new little Silver Can; moreover, I give and bequeath unto 
him all Bedsteads, Tables, Forms, Livery Cupboards, Presses, Grates, and Chimney 
Plates which now remain in the Hall of Hanmer, the same and the Plate to continue as 
heirlooms to the house of Hanmer. Item, I give and bequeath unto him my Dunn Mare 
and my Grey Filly and my Velvet Saddle. Item, I give him a Trunk marked with his 
name, with all such things as are now lock’d up in it, which I desire his Mother to deliver 
him. Item, I give him all my Books now remaining in my Study, and all my Latin 
Books, Law Books, and Statute Books whatsoever. Item, I give him all the Armour now 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


43 


remaining or appertaining to my house. Item, I do bequeath, commit, and com¬ 
mend m) said Son and heir during his minority and tender years to the tuition, 
care, and protection of my right worthy and trusty good Cousins, The Reverend Father 
in God John Lord Bishop of S l Asaph, S r Roger Mostyn, S r John Trevor, and S r 
Thomas Trevor, knights, and of Dame Dorothy my Wife during her Widowhood, 
only charging my Son hereby to be ruled by them, and to use their aid and best 
advice in matching ol himself; and though I know of no cause or tenure to draw 
my Son in Ward, yet, lest his Minority might invite Men to attempt it in this prying and 
eagle-sighted age, I do hereby desire my said worthy Cousins to examine well that point, 
and, if they shall find instant cause of Wardship, then they to become Suitors to his 
Majesty for a Grant unto them of the same; I mean both body and Lands, which I desire 
may be wholly converted and employed to and for the only good of my Son and heir, and 
to procure the same at his charge. And I do hereby humbly implore his Royal Majesty 
(whom I pray God long to bless with all happiness) to be graciously pleased to this my 
humble desire, and if upon strict examination my said worthy Cousins do find or conceive 
not just cause of W ardship, and that, nevertheless, some attempt shall be made to the 
contrary, I do hereby desire them to resist all such attempts, and do authorize them 
hereby to retain any of the issues and profits of my lands, tenements, and hereditaments or 
otherwise, out of the price and value of my lands in Mountgomyshire (which I have 
appointed to be sold), to maintain and defend my said Son therein. I give and bequeath 
to Dame Dorothy my wife my Coach, with the furniture thereof, and my two Grey 
Mares, and the rest of my Silver Plate not hereby before bequeathed to my Son. 
Item, I give and bequeath to my wife and my Son Thomas all the beddings and 
furniture of my House herein not before bequeathed, to be equally divided amongst 
them, and my wife to have the occupation as well of all the Plate bequeathed to 
my Son as of pte of the said Furniture during his Minority, that is, until he 
attain his full age of one and twenty years. Item, I bequeath to my wife all 

my Oxen and Cows except one of the old kyne, which I give to Thomas Roe, my 

Servant. Item, I give and bequeath to my Feoffees in trust, viz: the Bishop of 

S l Asaph, S r John Trevor, S r Roger Mostyn, and S r Thomas Trevor, Knights, and 

Humphrey Dymocke, Esq r ., the Lease I have of Tythe of Halghton, under the rent 
of forty pounds, which they are to pay duly to my Brother Roger Hanmer,* according to 
the lease thereof made, under pain of forfeiture; and I do likewise bequeath unto them all 
other my Leases, if I have any such, which I desire them to dispose of as I have directed 
for the rest of my inheritance. Item, I give and bequeath to each one of my said 
Feoffees two and twenty shillings in gold, to make them rings, in remembrance of my love 
towards them. Item, I give and bequeath to John Jones my Servant five marks a year 
during his life, to be paid him yearly at May Day and the Feast of S l Michael the 
Archangel, by even portions by my said Feoffees, in Trust, during their time, out of the 
residue of the profits of my Lands appointed to be paid to my heir, notwithstanding any 
* This was Roger Hanmer of Gredington and Penley mentioned further on. 


44 


A MEMORIAL 


former declaration, of Trust and afterwards to be paid by my heir and my feoffees to see 
this secured unto him before they reconvey to my heir. Item, I do bequeath to Mr. Hynd 
of Bunbury five pounds. Item, I do appoint black only to be given to my Wife and 
Children and twelve of my Servants. The rest of my Goods, Chattels, Cattle, Implements 
of Household and Husbandry, and Emblements, before by me not hereby bequeathed, I give 
and bequeath to my Wife, paying and discharging my funeral expenses, legacies, servants’ 
wages, and fifty pounds owing to Bichard Trevor knight,* her Father, and such debts as 
remain unpaid at London since my last going thither, whereof I have delivered her a 
particular subscribed by me ; and the hundreth pounds I owe John Humfreys of London, 
if he cannot recover the same upon my brother Baggnalls new bond ; and these legacies to 
be in full recompence of her reasonable part of my personal Estate or Chattels real, if any 
be due unto her; and the rest and residue of my debts I appoint to be paid by my 
Feoffees by the sale of my lands in Mountgmyshire, and my Executors not to be 
charged therewith, or, if my Creditors do charge them, that my Feoffees shall nevertheless 
save them harmless. Item, I do nominate and appoint Dame Dorothy my Wife and my 
Son Thomas Hanmer to be Executors of this my last Will. In witness whereof I have 
hereunto put my hand and seal, the day and year first above written.— John Hanmer. 

Memorand that the eighteenth day of June, 1624, this Will was sealed, acknow¬ 
ledged, and published by the within named S r John Hanmer to be his last Will and 
Testament, in the presence of the persons subscribed.—Humfrey Dymocke, Thomas 
Hanmer, Lewis Evans, Peter Ellis, Thomas Lewis. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, the second Baronet of that creation, who now 
(1624) succeeded at Hanmer, was at that time, according to the inquisition 
post mortem of his father, twelve years and fifty-six days old; but I do 
not find any mention of his baptism in the Hanmer register. He was 
soon afterwards taken as a page into the Court of King Charles I., where 
it was not unusual in those days to find the sons of gentlemen belonging 
to the Principality. He afterwards appears to have held the office of 
cupbearer, in which one of his predecessors within a short time had been 
George Yilliers, then Duke of Buckingham. 

Before he was of age he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas 
Baker of Wliittingliam, in Suffolk, who was one of the maids of honour. 

There is some mention of this lady, and of the rivalry of the courtiers 
for her good graces, since she was an heiress, in a letter of Howell to Lord 
Cottington, printed in the curious volume of his correspondence :— 

“ There is little news at our Court, but that there fell an ill-favoured quarrel betwixt 
Sir Kenelm Digby and Mr. Goring, Mr. Jermyn, and others, at St. James’s lately about 


* Sir Richard Trevor of Trevallyn. 


OF TIIE PARISH OF ITANMER. 


45 


Mrs. Baker, the maid of honour, and duels were like to grow out of it, but that the 
business was taken up by the Lord Treasurer, my Lord of Dorset, and others appointed 
by the King.” 

There were two surviving children by this marriage—one, John, who 
succeeded as third Baronet, and was owner of Ilanmer in his father’s time, 
and a daughter, Trevor, afterwards Lady Warner, who became a nun. 
Other children died; and, in 1638, for reasons of which I have no trace. 
Sir Thomas and his brother John appear to have obtained a passport to 
travel by themselves abroad for three years. 

Extract from the Council Register, Car. I. vol. xvi. p. 444. 

[30 Sept. 1638.] 

A passe for S r Thomas Hanmer of Hanmer, in y e County of Flint, Barb w th his 
brother, John Hanmer, Esq r , to travell into forraigne partes for 3 yeares, and to take w tb 
them two servants, their trunkes of apparell, and other necessaries, w th a proviso not to goe 
to Rome, and y e usuall clause to y e searchers. Signed by Lord Keeper, Lord Trer, Lo. 
Privy Seale, Earl Marshall, Earl of Salisbury, Lo. Cottington, Lo. Newburgh, and Mb 
Sec. Coke. 

If they remained on the Continent during that period, they must have 
had troubled greetings on their return, for in 1642 each of them received, 
from York and from Nottingham, the following ill-omened commissions, of 
which the first, to John, who was afterwards killed in action, exists only in 
fragments:— 

Charles R.&c: 

To our trusty and well beloved John Ilanmer, Esq.to be Captain of one 

Company of Foot. 

Given under our sign manual at York, this eighth day of August, in the eighteenth 
year of our reign, 1642. 

Warrant to raise “ Dragoniers.” 

17th Sept. 1642, at Nottingham, and addressed to Sir Thomas Hanmer, 

Baronet. 

Charles R.* 

Charles, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, 
Defender of the Faith, &c. to our trusty and well beloved Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, 

* In a paper concerning the condition of France in 1648, written by this Sir Thomas Hanmer, 

N 




4G 


A MEMORIAL 


greeting. Whereas by the subtilty, contrivance, and malicious practices of some persons, 
ill affected to our government and the peace of this our kingdom, a most horrid rebellion 
is grown to a height in and about London, under the specious pretext of defence of our 
person, and of the common good, threatening the ruin and destruction of our subjectes if 
timely care be not taken to put a stay to the rage and malice of these men ; and whereas 
we may have some cause of jealousy that there is some design intended to disturb the 
peace and quiet of our well-affected subjects in the Counties of Chester, Salop, Flint, and 
Denbigh, we have thought good for the better strengthening of these parts to will and 
require you, and do by these presents grant unto you full power and authority, by yourself, 
and by such commanders and officers as you shall constitute and appoint, forthwith to 
levy in this our kingdom, by beating the drum, two hundred dragoniers, of such persons 
as shall voluntarily undertake the said service, by accepting of prest-money, which said 
soldiers so raised you are to take charge of as their Captain and leader, and to employ 
them for aid of the said several counties, or upon such other occasion, for our service, as 
we shall from time to time direct. Willing and commanding all our commissioners of 
array, sheriffs, mayors, justices of the peace, bayliffs, constables, and all other our officers, 
ministers, and subjects, to be aiding and assisting you and your officers, and they to be 
obedient and ready to accomplish your commands and directions in all things which shall 
concerne the advancement of our service in the premises, as they and every of them will 
answer the contrary at their peril ; and these our letters shall be to you and every of them 
sufficient warrant and authority. Given at our Court at Nottingham, the 7 th day of 
Sept r , in the 18 th year of our reigne. 1G42. 

Sir Thomas did not engage very willingly in the Civil War; indeed, 
soon after it began he was occupied in the peaceful business of suffering a 
common recovery of part of his estate, including the Manor of Hanmer 
and the Park and Mere, which I mention because it is likely that the 
park at Ilanmer, now only known by the name extending over certain 
fields, was an antient one, preceding that which we have here. The In¬ 
denture is dated 4th May, 1643. This Indenture was followed by another, 
10th May, settling the premises according to the practice of our house, with 
limitation over to William Hanmer, Esq., of Pens, and his heirs male, failing 

and printed in a curious volume bj the late Sir Henry Bunbury, Sir Thomas says of that King: 
“ He signs Louis underneath, and not above as the King of England useth.” Another of King 
Charles’s unfortunate commissions, dated at York, 3rd Aug. 1642, and addressed to various 
gentlemen, including Sir Thomas Hanmer, as his Commissioners of Array for Flintshire, 
authorises them, following some antient phraseology, to raise among other forces “ Sagittarios,” 
archers, for his Majesty’s service against the rebellion. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


47 


heirs male of the said Sir Thomas Hanmer. But while these domestic 
arrangements were going on, like others of the Cavaliers, Sir Thomas was 
ready to serve the King his master in hopes of better times. The letters 
and papers which I shall annex, though they are few and unimportant for 
anything hut a slight sketch of local history like the present, will 
sufficiently show how those hopes were soon frustrated; how, after having 
been obliged to appear before the Committee at Westminster, he obtained 
the King’s permission at Oxford to absent himself from the realm; and 
after some years of exile, some of them passed at Angers in Trance, where 
his son William was born of his second marriage with Susan Hervey of 
Ickwortli, and also after residences at Lewisham and other places in England 
under surveillance of the existing powers, he finally settled himself at 
Bettisfield. The remainder of his life was passed there, and in Parliamentary 
service for many years in the time of Charles the Second, and familiar 
traces of his hand have always surrounded me. I removed one long since, 
a smoking-room, not an unusual apartment in ancient houses from the 
time of Queen Elizabeth, as Sir John Cullum tells us in his History of 
Hawsted; this one was rather curious, but came in the way of new arrange¬ 
ments ; it was decorated with ancient shields of arms, beginning, I think, 
with those of old Sir Thomas Hanmer and his wife Jane Brereton. 
It may be supposed that his descendant sometimes revolved in his mind 
the subjects of the following notes, while he took his tobacco.* 

Letter from the Master of the Bolls to Sir Thomas Hanmer, 

6th Eebruary, 1643. 

Sir, 

I very hartely thanke you for your letter, and the relation of the condition of your 
parts, to the improving of which, if it were in my power, I would most willingly con¬ 
tribute. The sole command and managing of them is in the Prince, depending on his 
moving to you. who, if the counties do their part, I hope, upon the arrival of the new 
forces, will be master of the field, aud in a better condition than you were before this 
misfortune. His Majesty has made him President of Wales, and if yourself were his 
Vice-President I should be confident that business were well settled. 1 have endeavoured 

* In the paper on France, to which I have before referred, Sir Thomas says, “ There is a 
necessity that laws should change with the humour and constitution of the people and times. 
Nothing is perfect under the sun ; that which is wisdom and reason to-day, in another age is 
folly, madness, and destruction.” 


0 


48 


A MEMORIAL 


it, so far as is in my power, and wish you would think of it, and address yourself to him 
accordingly. His Majesty very willingly harkened to your postscript of the old gentle¬ 
man, and desires you to omit nothing that may conduce to that business, and bids me 
assure you he will make good what you shall undertake concerning the same. Vavasour 
shall be written to as you mention. My servant presseth to be gone, and I shall trouble 
you with no more, but that I am your very affectionate servant, 

J. COLEPEPPER* 

Oxford, 6 th Feb ry , 1643. 

Pray remember me very kindly to Robin Ellis. I have enquired, and can find no 
such pardons in hand as he mentioned. 

For my very worthy friend 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, these. 

Letter endorsed in Sir Thomas Hanmer’s handwriting. 

Lieut. Jones’s Letter to me to pay the money to this man. 

Sir, 

I received your letter, and return you thanks for your first messenger ; sorry I am 
that I cannot satisfy your expection with the sight of the troop under your own 
command, but, since it is committed by Prince Rupert to the care of Major Power, I am 
confident that they will not be indulged so much favour as to be sent into their own 
country untill the war be ended or the troop dissolved. Had I been with my captainf 
when he was employed upon his last service, I should I believe have known where and 
how much was the money he had, but upon enquiry I found it was lost with him, being 
in gold in his pocket. For the money which I disbursed at his last solemnity, the sum of 
it I sent you before with the quarter master, and will shew his hands subscribed as 
witnesses, being 431. 4s. Id. I cannot find how to have it returned by bill of exchange, 
so that I have sent my servant to you, and will run the hazard of losing it in the passage 
with him. If you please to send it by him you will so much the more oblige me. 

Sir, yours in all faithful service, 

June 7 th , 1643. Roger Jones. 

To the Right Worshipful Sir Tho s Hanmer, these presents. 

Letter from Lord Capel to Sir Thomas Hanmer. 

Sir, 

Your intelligence concerning the meeting of the Cheshire and Staffordshire forces 
I have received also from other hands. I am not able to give myself the satisfaction of 

* At this time the Parliament, not heeding the King’s appointment, had made their 
Speaker Lenthal Master of the Rolls. 

f This appears to relate to Sir Thomas’s brother John, who was killed in action in 
Gloucestershire. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


49 


their purpose in drawing the forces that way; but by the removing of their prisoners to 
Nantwych, of which I am certainly informed, I do conceive they will rather join with 
Cromwell or Grey, or march up to my Lord of Essex, than attempt anything in these 
parts. Their warrants run for the fortifying of Stafford. Sir, I am much obliged to you 
for your care to gain intelligence, of which I shall desire speedy advertisement. 

I rest your very affectionate friend, 

Arthur Cafel. 

Shrewsbury, 25th July, 1643. 

1 have received a letter sent from the gentlemen of Flintshire to Captain Gryffyth, 
which signifies their weariness of the burden of the horse lying upon them. I have re¬ 
turned them an answer included, which I desire you to read, seal, and send to them. 

Letter from Secretary Nicholas to Prince Rupert mentioning Sir 
Thomas Hanmer as a fit person to be Vice-President of Wales. 

May it please your Highnes, 

By his Majestie’s comaund I send your Highnes inclosed a lettre from Collonel 
Lewson to his Majestie, whereby your Highnes will understand somewhat of the differences 
betweene the Lord Loughborow, the said Collonel Leweson (governour of Dudley Castle), 
and Collonel Boyd governour of Lichfield ; by occasion whereof his Majestie considers 
his services doe exceedingly suffer in these partes ; and therfore his Majestie hath 
comaunded me to desire your Highnes to call the said persons unto you, as soon as 
conveniently it may be, and to use some good meanes to reconcile or over-rule the said 
differences, that each in his respective comaund, and all of them together, may hereafter 
contribute their best endeavours (without clashing or jarring) for the advancement of his 
Majestie’s service and the publique good. 

His Majestie, considering it very requisite that there should be a Vice-President in 
Wales, hath thought on Sir Tho. Hanmer as a very fitt man for that charge, being a 
person very well affected to his Majestie, and of very good esteeme in Wales, and desires 
your Highnes’ opinion of it. 

As the King is very well pleased that your Highnes hath taken with you the governour 
of Barclay Castle, soe he hath comaunded me to desier your Highnes to take order that 
there be forthwith another put into his place, that is of very loyall affeccions, and a dilli- 
gent strict man, that being a place of great importance. 

The Earl of Newport is here, very dangerously sick, soe as it is thought he will hardly 
escape. 

The rebells att London are raysing of men very fast; they have alreddy shipped 
away for Dorsetshire above 1,000. 


50 


A MEMORIAL 


Sir William Waller hath a contagious disease amongst his soldiers, soe as he cannot 
get any men to recruit his forces for fear of infeccion. 

We have received lettres this day that the Scots (being about 10,000 foot and 1,500 
horse) are come to Morpeth ; they would have come into Alnwick, but the garrison there 
killed 40 of them, and the rest thereupon marched another way; their ordnance and 
carriages were to come by sea, and to meet them about Morpeth. 

I humbly beg your Highnes’ pardon for this tedious lettre, and to believe that I am 
really, 

Your Highnes’ most humble servaunt, 

Edw. Nicholas. 

Endorsed, without other date, 1644. 

A few miles from Hanmer, in W T ortlienbury parish, stands the ancient 
moated house of Emral, called Emberhall in Saxton’s maps, which was 
opposite to ours in the civil broils. Upon the occasion of the following 
letter, Hanmer, as well as Emral, seems to have been in the hands of 
the Parliamentary forces, and retaken from them by David Phillips; he 
was a noteahle tenant on the Hanmer estate, as other papers show. I 
believe, also, he was the grandfather of a Captain Phillips mentioned in 
McPherson’s State Papers as about Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Speaker, and 
looked after by Jacobite agents on that account, fortunately without result. 
Philip Henry speaks of the death of David Phillips in his diary, 29th April, 
1661, and appears to regret that he “ could say hut little to him.” 

Sir, 

We have taken Emral isterday, and Hanmer House this day, and all is like to be 
our own ; thanks be to God, we lost not one man in taking of both houses, for when they 
saw the piece of ordnance* we had they yielded both houses. Their quarter was to march 
away without arms, but only the captain, lieut., and ensign to remain prisoners. In both 
houses they desired the former quarter. Mr. Eyton bids me go on at Emral as they did 
for the rents and lands. Let me hear from you without fail. I would have waited 
myself upon you, but my Lord I hath commanded me here for three days, and I must wait 
upon him one day more, for he thinks to march to Bettisfield to-morrow, and then I 
shall apply your service, God willing. Mr. Eyton did take all with my Lord about 

* I have seen, however, a ball or two, kept as curiosities in the neighbourhood, which are 
supposed to have been discharged from this piece. 

f Lord Capel. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


51 


Emral, and he told him all should be well when you came, but you must keep a better 
garison there. 

In haste, your most humble, 

March 28 th , 1644. David Phillips. 

Written at Hanmer the same day. 

To the Hon. Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. 

These with speed. 

Valuation of Emral for the Cavalier Party. 

Rt. Honble. 

According to your Lordship’s warrant to us directed, we have repaired to the houses 
and lands of Mr. Puleston, and have used the best means we could possibly in so short a 
time to make an Inventory of the goods, and to give a true information of the value 
of the lands. We find that the demesnes and all the tenements which are out of lease have 
within these three or four years (since when the estate fell to Mr. Puleston) been so 
unmeasurably racked that there is a general exclamation thereat, so that divers have left 
their tenements and holdings, and the rest are so impoverished that they are not able to 
pay the rates, especially in these troublesome times, when there is no vent nor money to 
be had for the commodities which these countreys afford. We have therefore given 
order for the setting of the lands for this year at the values mentioned in the enclosed 
particulars, which are as high as we can at present advance them to, and refer the 
consideration thereof and the rest of our proceedings herein to your Lordship’s wisdom, 
and rest 

Your Lordship’s servants, 

Tno. Hanmer. 

William Broughton. 

To the Rt. Hon. the Lord Capel, 

Lieutenant-General to His Highness the Prince, 
at Whitchurch, 

Present these. 

The following Petition and the two nest papers relate to a former 
occupation of Emral by Sir Thomas Hanmer on part of the King. 

To the Hon We Comittee of Parliament at Goldsmiths’ Hall 
The Humble Petition of John Puleston of the Middle Temple Esq. 

Shewing 

That S r Thomas Hanmer Baronet in the yeare 1642 (by colour of some grant from 
the King) did enter upon your Petitioner’s houses, lands and tenemt 3 in the countys of 

P 


52 


A MEMORIAL 


Flint and Denby, and hath ever since taken and converted to his own use the petitioner’s 
goods, chatles and rents to the value of 6,000Z. and at this time with troopers and others 
his agents doth gather this Petitioner’s rents from his tenants. 

That with much cruelty and barbarousnesse the said Hanmer drove the Petitioner’s 
young children sucking their nurse’s brest out of the Petitioner’s houses to be fostered by 
the charity of the people. 

And now, notwithstanding he is still in actuall armes in Wales against the Parlia¬ 
ment, is endeavouring to make his composition with this Hon We Comitte. 

The Petitioner therefore humbly beseech th this Hon ble Comitte that if they shall 
conceave this man being the cheefe ringleader of the Welsh rebels to be capable of any 
composition, 

That then there may be a speciall saving of the justice of the two houses of Parliam 1 
for reparation of this Petitioner’s losses out of the said S r Thomas Hanmer’s estate, 

And your Petitioner shall pray, &c. 

Interrogatories in a suit for Damages against Sir Thomas Hanmer, for 

occupation of Einral by the King’s forces. 

I find no further reference to this transaction, but a MS. note that 
the Bill was dismissed with costs. 


Thomas John W hether did not M ns Puleston write a letter to S r Tho. Hanmer and send it by her 

Dauic/phil- seruant Thomas John Robert, which was deliuered to him when the King was att Ouer- 

lips ‘ ton, within 3 miles of M r Puleston’s house, to desire him to take all his estate into his 

John Dauis possession and secure whathee could, to which S r Tho. answered, after the reading of the 

uu f M? au l d . 1 . htter, that hee would doe his cozen Puleston all the good hee could, and did hee not saue 
Phillips to the ° 

wood. his wood from being cutt downe and sold. 

That the house was garrisoned first by Captaine Ratcliffe. 

That Maior S 4 John was the second that garrisoned there. 

That Captaine David Morris was the third. 

That Captaine Ratcliffe being a stranger in the countrey, and his men makeing 
havocke of his goods, M r Puleston’s seruants adressed them to S r Tho. Hanmer and 
John Dauis. prayed him to perswade Captaine Ratcliffe to preserve his goods and cattle, and that S r 
Tho. Hanmer thereupon came to M r Puleston’s house and did his best to saue what hee 
could from being carryed away. 

The fourth that was put in (likewise by Lord Capell’s warrant) was John Walters, 
Dauid Phillips the 19 th day of Aprill, 1643, or thereabouts, att which day there was an inuentorye taken 
of the goods, corne, and cattle then remaining att that garrison by S r Tho. Hanmer and 
Captaine William Broughton, and that they called three sufficient of the parish to appraise 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


53 


the goods, corne, and cattle, which was M r Richard Puleston, M r Roger Pulcston, and 
David Ap William, the farm tennant, and the other two his near kinsmen, whoe did 
prize them to 124 H . 

That M ns Eleano 1 Woolridg had leaue by S r Thomas his meanes to carry away what M 1 ** Wolricb 
of the best of the goods shee pleased, and accordingly did carry away two or three horse '^ n Holy ~ 
loades, and whether one of the horses did not tire by the way being soe heavy loaded. Thomas John 

Whether did not John Walters deliver vpp that garrison to Collonell Mitton without Phillips, 
any shott, and so soone as hee came before it. John I)auis ‘ 

Whether after the retaking of the house by the King’s fforces, the greatest spoyle 
was not done in the absence of S r Thomas Hanmer in the country. 

If any prone S ir Tho. Hanmer putt garrisons in to the house, to ax then how they 
know it, and whether they were present when hee did it ; to ax John Dauis where S r 
Tho. Hanmer was when RatclifFe was putt in and by whom it was reported RatclifFe 
was putt in. 

Whether S r Tho. Hanmer vpon command made not accompt to Prince Rupert John Dauis. 
for all hee had intermedled in of M r Puleston’s, and if he had not there vppon a discharge. 

Whether M r Puleston’s seruants did not complaine of the spoile done by Captain 
RatclifFe to S r Thomas, and desire him to vse meanes to remove him or secure what hee 
could. And whether did S ir Thomas fForth with repare to the house to preserue the 
goods, and was Captaine RatclifFe suddenly removed, and whether did Captaine RatclifFe 
take his horses then away, and what horses were there when S r Tho. Hanmer came to 
the house. 

Whether did not S r Tho. Hanmer pay moneys and what sum to the Lord Capell John Dauis. 
raised by sale of M r PulestoiPs cattle. 


In 1644, not many weeks after David Phillips had communicated to 
Sir Thomas the retaking of Hanmer House, he obtained licence to travel, 
taking with him his wife and son and daughter, while those transactions 
of the King, which rendered agreement with the Parliament more and more 
impracticable, were being carried on, to the grief of all the best of English 
gentlemen. Lady Hanmer soon died in Paris, and Sir Thomas, moving 
backwards and forwards between Prance and England, finally returned 
there under the surveillance of the ruling powers, marrying for his second 
wife Susan Hervey* of Ickworth, whose two sons, William and Thomas, 
will be hereafter mentioned. 


* 1646, November 22, Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, and Mrs. Susan Hervey, were married 
at Hengrave. Extract from Register in Gage’s History and Antiquities of Hengrave, p. 77. 


54 


A MEMORIAL 


Passport for Sir Thomas Hanmer. 

Charles K. 

Charles, hy the grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of 
the Faith. To all admirals, vice-admirals, and captains of any of our ships serving us 
upon the seas, etc. etc. Whereas of especial grace we have licensed and by these 
presents do license our trusty and well beloved Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart, to pass out of 
this realm into the parts beyond the sea, there to remain for the space of three years next 
after his departure out of this realm, we will and command you, and every of you. to 
suffer him quietly to pass by you out of this realm, with his lady, two children, two 
servants, two hundred pounds in ready money, and his goods, truncks, and necessaries, 
as you tender our pleasure. And these our letters shall be to you, as to him, sufficient 
warrant and discharge in this behalf. Provided always, that the said Sir Thomas 
Hanmer does not haunt or resort into the territories or dominions of any foreign prince 
or potentate not being with us in league or amity ; nor yet willingly keep company 
with any person or persons departed out of this realme without our leave and license, or 
that contrary to the same do yet remain on the other side the seas ; and that he use not 
the company of any Jesuit, seminary priest, or otherwise ill affected person to our State. 
Provided also that, notwithstanding anything in this our license, whensoever it shall seem 
good to us to call the said Sir Thomas Hanmer home again before the end of the term 
above limited, and shall signify the same to him either by our own letters or the letters of 
any four of our Privy Councillors, or by the means of any other ambassador, that then it 
shall not be lawful for the said Sir Thomas Hanmer to abide on the other side the sea any 
longer time than the distance of his abode shall require and our laws do permit ; and if 
he do not without urgent and very necessary cause to the contrary return in manner 
abovesaid, then we will this our license to be void and of none effect from the beginning 
and to be interpreted and adjudged to all intents and purposes as though no such license 
had been given, but he departed without the same. 

Given under our signet at our Court at Oxford the 15th day of May in the 20th 
year of our reign (1644). 

By His Majesty’s commands, 

Edw. Nicholas. 

The following warrant for the portion of Lady Hanmer, as a Maid of 
Honour, according to a practice now discontinued,* should have been 
inserted in correspondence with its date; as, however, it is endorsed, 
“ Warrant from the King for 500/. for my wife, never received ,” it may 
come in at this period as well as at any other. 

* I think it lasted till the reign of King William the Fourth. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


55 


Charles R. 

“ Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well. It is our will and pleasure that you 
pay, or give order to be paid, the sum of Five Hundred Pounds unto the Lady Elizabeth 
Hanmer, late Maid of Honor unto our dearest consort the Queen, out of such monies as 
you shall receive for the Composition of the Pardon of Piobert Nut, Pirate, which we 
have given as a gift out of our Royal bounty unto her, and for so doing this shall be 
your sufficient warrant. 

“ Whitehall, this 20th of February, 1631. 

“ To our Lord Treasurer 
“ These/’ 

From the Journals of the House of Commons, 17th November, 1645. 

Ordered, that it be referred to the Committee at Goldsmiths’ Hall to receive any in¬ 
formation concerning Sir Thomas Hanmer, and upon the report of his Composition to 
state the matter of fact to the House.* 

Journals of the House of Commons. 

18th June, 1646. Sir Thomas Hanmer was called in, and his examination subscribed 
by his own name was shewed unto him, the which he did avow to be his own hand, and 
that he would justify the truth thereof; whereupon he was enjoined to attend the pleasure 
of the House when he should be thereunto required. 

This entry in the Journals has reference to a letter from Sir Thomas 
Hanmer to Speaker Lentlial, and to the Articles of Examination coupled 
with it, which are printed at page 95, vol. first, of Mr. Cary’s papers from 
the Tanner Collection of MSS. in the Bodleian Library relating to the 
Civil War:— 


Sir Thomas Hanmer to the Speaker. 

Having some reason to believe, in the latter end of March last, that there was a 
private treaty betwixt the King and the Scots, and that the King was upon a resolution 
to go into Scotland or to the Scottish army, and that this treaty was managed by the 
intervention of Montrevil, the French agent, and designed in France, I conceive this 
counsel and intention of the King not only infinitely prejudicial to himself and this 


* This order must have been caused by Mr. Puleston’s petition. 

Q 


56 


A MEMORIAL 


kingdom, but dishonorable to the English nation in deserting them, and thereby rendering 
their fidelity more suspected than the Scots, and thought it my duty, both as an 
Englishman and as his Majesty’s servant, to discover my knowledge thereof in time, to 
such as might possibly prevent the mischiefs which I feared would attend their design ; 
I therefore acquainted some of the Committee of both kingdoms with what follows, 
according to the times hereafter mentioned. 

April 4th. That one of the Scotch Commissioners told me that he believed, and 
would lay a wager, that the King would be in London, or in the Scots army, very 
suddenly, perhaps before Wednesday night next, if he could pass, and that if he came to 
the Scots they would receive him and use him civilly, and stand to him in his rights. 
Another Scotch gentleman, being a brother-in-law of the said Commissioner, told me 
the said evening that the said Commissioner had in great secresy assured him that the 
King would be suddenly with the Scots, and that a messenger was sent to the King the 
night before, from a party here, to advise him what to do, and that Newark would be 
speedily surrendered. 

April 10th. The said Commissioner told me that the King would endeavour to get 
to their army before Newark, and if he came safe thither would send to the Parliament 
to offer to pass the propositions of Uxbridge, and thereupon, if the Parliament refused a 
peace, he doubted not but that two parts of three of England would be for the King, and 
he was sure that the whole kingdom of Scotland would be as one man ior him, for then 
there would be no Montroses. 

April 29th. Being the fast day, the said Commissioner and his brother-in-law called 
at my lodgings, and the Commissioner with great joy told me the news of the King’s 
going safely out of Oxford, and that some of the Scotch horse before Newark would 
advance to meet him to bring him to the Parliament here, which he said smiling. I 
then asked whether Leslie would receive him, and his brother answered that my lord 
Lauderdale had gone down to take order for that. 

May 4th. The said Commissioner’s brother told me that they did not yet hear where 
the King was, but perhaps he would go to Scotland first and not to the Army, that he 
might first disband Montrose and settle that kingdom ; that the Scots would keep all fair 
correspondence with the Parliament, till they had satisfied the people with their papers 
and declarations that they expected five thousand more out of Scotland, and that, if they 
came to a breach with the Parliament, they could with the forces they would draw out of 
Ireland and Scotland, make an army of six thousand horse and twenty-six thousand foot, 
and should be assisted out of France with three thousand horse and ten thousand foot, 
and horse were to be expected out of Denmark, and the Swedes would certainly aid 
them, and they doubted not of a great party in England. 

May 7th. He confirmed the assurance of foreign succours, and said that Newark 
would be offered to the Scots, but it should be delivered to the Parliament to carry all 
show of fairness, and then that the Scotch army would immediately retreat to Newcastle, 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


57 


and then the King would suddenly send letters to the Parliament here, and to the city of 
London, to offer peace upon the propositions of Uxbridge. This same night the said 
Commissioner told me that the City of London would be for them, and that the King 
would send letters to the Parliament and City to the effect aforesaid. 

The Saturday morning before the King’s last letters were delivered to the Par¬ 
liament the Commissioner’s said brother informed me of the tenor thereof, and that my 
Lord Balcarras had brought copies of them to shew beforehand to their friends here, and 
that the messenger stayed by the way with the letters, and should not come with them 
to the House till they had consulted here, and agreed upon the fittest time for the delivery 
of them. I understood likewise out of France, before the King’s going to Oxford, that 
they expected daily to hear of the King’s safe arrival in the North, and was informed that 
Montrevil the French agent had treated the business betwixt the King and the Scots, 
and, when he had concluded on all things with the King, went before to Lesley’s army 
to take care for his reception there, and that the King had the honour and faith 
of the Scots engaged to him to stick to him in the business of the Militia, and to be used 
well in all things, if he would comply with them in the Church government, which they 
must in honour stand for, and that the Queen Regent of France and the Queen of 
England had agreed to the design of the King going to the Scots, who labor now 
mainly to have the Prince there also. I mean the Scots labor for his Highness coming 
to Scotland. 

June 7th, 1646. Tho. Hanmer. 

At the Committee for the Army. 


Letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer concerning a fall of timber in the time 

of the Civil Wars. 

For the Honorable S r Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, at the Red Cross, near Essex 

House, London. 


Honoured Sir, 

Since you were pleased to write unto Mr. Edisbury concerning the sale of the wood 
that you appointed y r man John ap Ellis to shew unto me, that 1 should be the first man 
that should offer money for it, for the which I am much engaged to you that you had me 
in remembrance before any other, and since you writ to Mr. Edisbury you were pleased 
to send your man John David, who came to me from you with John ap Ellis, shewing 
their authority from you, signifying that whatsoever contract or bargain they made or 
should make with me concerning that wood, that it should be as fully and effectually 
performed as if you yourself were then present, upon which I and they concluded and 


58 


A MEMORIAL 


bargained for the woode aforesaid as followeth ; that is to say, all that John ap Ellis gave 
me the view of at the rate of 220/., 120/. to be paid upon demand, and 100/. to be paid 
at Midsummer next, and the wood to be rid and carried away within the space of two 
years ; and further they did set the land the wood groweth upon now at the rate of 9/. a 
year, for the avoyding of all trespasses and other inconveniences, with liberty to cole the 
cord wood, and to make saw-pits for the making of the timber ; this was our contract. 
Now since we thus bargained,* my Lady Hanmer, your mother, seemeth to be discontent 
at the same ; therefore I thought it best convenient to acquaint you with the particulars, 
not doubting that you will be pleased to take some course or other to give satisfaction, 
and so we may go fairly and according to bargain. Thus praying for y r health and 
happiness, and expecting to hear from you, I remain 

Your loving friend and servant, 

March 12 th , 1646. William Wilson. 


A Letter from Roger Hanmer, Esquire,f to liis Nephew Sir Thomas 
Hanmer, Bart., about settling with the Sequestrators. 


Sir, 

I am very sorry it was my ill fortune not to finde you here. Your order desired is 
with me, though difficultly, attained ; if you will give directions how I shall send it 
you, I shall observe it, for I think it not fit to send it by the carrier. The enclosed letter 
1 desire you to peruse, and provide for it against the time : for Mr. Bradshaw the 
Receiver ceaseth not to tell me of the danger and charge if the tenth of March be passed 
without payment, for the messengers are very costly. There hath been allowance in all 
the sequestration of all your lands in the settling of it, for all monies due unto any, and 
there hath been no notice taken of any of your lands in Englefield. I would not have 
your particular occasioned to be scanned needlessly. I desire you to send him a fair 
answer, and will endeavour with all my uttermost endeavours to do you any service 
therein ; he is somewhat rigid, but I must straine to satisfy him if possible. The army 
for the safety of the kingdom is reduced this day to 5,400 horse and 1,000 dragooners; 
what foot will be reserved in pay, if any, will be known to-morrow ; a letter is come 


The value of timber has been a fertile source of difference at all times. I find another 
letter to Sir Thomas from Sir Thomas Trevor, to a similar effect, the former having incautiously 
become a referee on such a question. 

f This Roger Hanmer was owner of Gredington, which he left to Sir John the third baronet, 
who sold it to Mr. Hilton, through whom the site of the house, and some of the land around it, 
came to the Kenyon family. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


59 


this night irom the King to the Lords and Commons, but the Lords have not sent it yet 
to the House of Commons. 

Sir, 

Y r assured faithful Uncle 
and servant, 

Roger Hanmer. 


I desire my humble service be presented to y r lady. 

If you send y r letters to the Red Cross I shall receive them. 

London, 18 th Feby. 1646. 

To my very much honored nephew Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, 

at Hengrave, SufFolke. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer to Sir Richard Browne, Resident for the 

King at Paris.* * * § 

Angiers, 4th Dec. 1647. 

S r , 

I have received yours of the 27 Nov r with the enclosed letters and prints, but I 
admire which way the one came to your hands, I meane that for my wife.f You have 
much obliged mee in the favour of sending the prints,! f° r they are scarce here, and I 
despise not the intelligence for being made pub lick. Wee hear the like ill news from 
others, and are now without sodaine hopes of bettering our condition. Wee pass the 
time but indifferently well here, though we want not good wine and victualls, finding not 
such conversation as yours, S r W m Davenant’s, and Mr. Cowley’s, yet wee have the com¬ 
fort of some of our countrymen, as M r Coventry, Doctor Duncombe (a very honest man 
certainly), S r Richard Percy, and some of the younger straine, as S r George Savile,§ 
S r John Armytage, and others. S r Thomas Glemham was lately here in his way to 
Nantes, but he is gone back to Laflesche and talkes of being shortly in Paris. S r Bryan 
Palmer has beene almost despairing of life at Laflesche with a fever, but is well recovered. 
I have nothing of a date late enough out of England to impart to you, and I conceave you 
have much better intelligence, but if I have hereafter any thing may bee worthy your 
knowledge, I shall acquaint you therewith. My wife (as well as myself) present our 
service to yo r lady and daughter; wee are all in health, but my wife grones a little, which 

* This and the two following letters come from some papers of Mr. Evelyn, whose wife was 
daughter of Sir Richard Browne. 

■j- This was Susan Hervey of Ickworth, to whom, his first wife Elizabeth Baker having died 
at Paris, Sir Thomas was married at Hengrave in Suffolk, November 22nd, 1646. 

! He means newspapers. 

§ Afterwards Marquis of Halifax. 

R 


60 


A MEMORIAL 


makes mee unresolved of my stay in this place, but I shall not remove without giving you 
notice. I have nothing more to add but my humble thanks for all your favours to, 

S r , your faithfull servant, 

T. Hanmer. 

Mr. Weston promised to pay you (4 pistols) for my use. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer to Sir Richard Browne. 

Angiers, Dec r 7 th , 1647. 

S r , 

By the last post I gave you thanks for your favo r of the 27th Nov. and now write to 
give you knowledge of y e receipt of your last, dated Dec r 1 st . I have given my other 
friends at Rouen and other places an account of my being settled here, and direction 
how to addresse their letters, that you may not hereafter bee troubled with the conveyance 
of them, and doe hereby crave your pardon for what is past. Yet I shall beg some times 
at your leisure to heare from you, and should bee as glad to receave some commands 
from you in these parts. If I knew of any thing this place affords y t were portable, and 
worth the sending, I should let you see my willingness to serve you, but this season 
affords nothing. I drinke your health in good white wyne, but the mischief is that ’tis 
too far to convey some of it to you. 

Your newes of the King’s being in Wight was the first I had thereof ; the next day I 
had letters thereof from London and Rouen. I thanke you for your booke, and that also 
which you desird S r Thomas Glemham to send to mee, but I confesse I now long more 
than ever I did since this warr to heare the next newes, for I expect some very soddaine 
and furious attempts of y e levellers, which, nevertheless, I confess I feare not, for I thinke 
lesse danger to monarchy in their rashnes and violences then in the parliament’s more 
moderate course. If you meet with the Case of the Army, or any of those levelling 
books, and have not occasion to use them, I would willingly see them, to compare them 
with Utopia, which certainly resembles them, and is not very irrational. My wife 
presents her humble service to your lady and self, and so doth most thankfully, 

S r , yo r most affectionate faithfull servant, 

T. Hanmer. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer to Sir Richard Browne. 

Angers, 13 th Apr. 1649. 

S', 

I heare that our King * is expected shortly at Paris, and intends for Ireland ; my 
request therefore is, that you would let mee know the certainty thereof, and at what port 

* This was King Charles the Second, King Charles the First having been beheaded in the 
previous January. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


61 


in Brittany, Normandy, or elsewhere hee intends to take shipping, and about what tyme, 
that I may order my affaires soe as to give myselfe the honor and happines of kissing his 
hands. My iourney to Paris would bee very long and chargeable, and therefore I 
should be very glad to wayt on him at the sea port, or somewhere on his way. You will 
oblige mee much in ascertaining mee of his motion. 

Yesterday I return’d from Nants, where I mett with one M r Hollis, an English 
merchant residing there, who thought hee should have some occasion to wayte on you, or 
send to you, about a ship of his stayd by the French in Belle Isle. I assurd him of your 
readines to assist our merchants, and shall likewise assure you that hee is a very honest 
able man, and right for the King, and soe recomend him to you. The news out of Ire¬ 
land was certainly there, by ships lately come in, that O’Neale was not ioynd by my L d 
Ormond, nor like sodainly to bee, nor Dublyn taken, but that Prince Rupert took many 
prizes,* and lately the Constant Warwicke ; shee was at first said to bee sunke by him, but 
the latest newes saies shee is taken and in Ireland ; shee hath 25 brasse gunns. 

I left my L d Falkland and Doctor Maplet at Nantes ; they goe towards Bourdeaux 
within ten dayes, and desir’d mee to present their service to you. My L d Willoughby is 
at S 1 Maloes, and most of our English driven hence by the late warr here betwixt this 
towne and castle, but we are now quiet, though Nantes will not lay down their arms as 
yet; but the fault is in the populace only. I shall now trouble you no further, S r , but 
with my memory and my service to your selfe and Lady, and soe rest, 

S r , 

Your most faithfull Servant, 

T. Hanmer. 

I take the liberty to entreate this letter may be safely delivered to Peruchot,f because 
I know not where hee lodges at this tyme. My service, I pray you, to all my friends. 

In 1651, by Indenture dated 1st September, Sir Thomas leased to 
Andrew Ellice of Altlirey, and John Eyton of Leeswood, esquires, his 
manor of Hanmer with its demesnes, and several other lands in Hanmer 
and Penley, the impropriate tithes of Hanmer parish, etc., etc., for the 
purpose of paying his debts incurred in the Civil War, and raising a por¬ 
tion for his daughter Trevor, out of the rents, for eight years, and he never 
afterwards lived at Hanmer. This was preparatory to his return to England 
in peace, which not long afterwards he happily accomplished. One of his 
first acts appears to have related to the redress and improvement of his 
estate, by the purchase which he effected of the disputed manorial rights 
of the Hundred of Maelor. These, which conflicted with his own, and were 

* A portion of the fleet had adhered to Prince Rupert. 

p Peruchot was a florist, some of whose roots and seeds Sir Thomas lived afterwards to plant 
at Bettisfield. 


62 


A MEMORIAL 


often otherwise denied, involving opposite ideas about commons, and having 
nothing very certain about them except the Court of the Hundred, and the 
Overton Court Baron, scenes of little litigation, he sought to extinguish, or 
at least to acquire, and he ultimately purchased them, in conjunction with 
Mr. John Bridgeman, and Mr. Lloyd of Halghton, in 1656, for £1050. The 
following letter, dated from Haulton, while his mother, Lady Dorothy, 
still lived there, refers to the treaty and proposition. 

A true copy of my letter to Sir Orlando Bridgeman about Maylors 
and some exchanges, Nov. 20th, 1653. 

Haulton. 

Sir 

I have recieved yours of the loth of this month, but cannot yet be of opinion that 
my Lady * will either make more money or friends by selling Maylors by parcels, for the 
entire royalty is a noble thing, but broken to pieces will be nothing considerable, and as 
for pleasing the generality of the gentry by letting every one have the town his estate 
lies in, that cannot possiby be done, because the towns are so great that in many of 
them there are two or more gentlemen of quality who would be competitors, and if 
one be pleased the other will be displeased, so what you intend for a general satisfaction 
will become the seed-plot of contention. If my Lady finds it more for her advantage to 
sell the whole together, I shall give her more than I believe others will, but if the 
contrary be resolved I desire to have the parish of Hanmer, which consists of six town¬ 
ships,! viz:—Hanmer, Bettisfield, Bronington, Tybrougliton, Millington, and Halghton; 
in the three first I have good houses and demesnes, and in the other three very considerable 
freeholds. The other gentlemen that are most interested in this parish are my Cosin 
Hanmer, whose house of The Fens is in this township of Bronington, but I hope he and I 
may easily agree; Mr. Lloyd of Halghton, though he resides there, perhaps may be better 
pleased with the royalties of all Overton parish, where he hath most land, and relinquish 

* The Countess of Derby, Charlotte de la Tremouille, at that time owner of Maylor 
Hundred Courts and Manor of Overton Madoc, deriving title from a grant by King Edward 
III. to Eubule Le Strange. 

| The guarantee against trespass and usurpation, as he states his object to be, which Sir 
Thomas acquired for himself by this purchase, was mostly within these limits, but the Courts 
while they lasted were held jointly, in the names of the joint purchasers. They have been 
obsolete now for more than forty years; we in our time having been of much the same 
mind about them, especially considering the Inclosure Acts, as Sir Thomas expressed in this 
letter in the days of the Commonwealth. The free fishery of the river Dee, of the same nature 
as free warren, once belonged to this manor within its bounds, and the common of fishery in 
coracles exercised by the fishermen of Overton and Bangor is a relic and ancient coincident of 
the claim. 


OF TIIE PARISH OF HANMER. 


63 


Halghton to me, being in Hanmer parish, he shall have my interest out to Overton, though 
I have some estate there. There is no other gentleman in Hanmer but my Cosin Dymock, 
who lives in Willington. I believe he would oppose what he could. In Worthenbury, 
Judge Puleston and Mr. Broughton of Broughton are the only persons of quality. In 
Bangor, my Cosin Andrew Ellis must not be forgott, and in Bodidris Sir Evan Lloyd. As 
for the other little parcels beyond Dee it matters not who hath them; in Penley, myself and 
my uncle Roger have most of the town. There remains only the Court Baron of Overton 
to be considered of, which every gentleman may perhaps desire, because it is pretended that 
all the other towns of Maylor owe suite to that Court, and we are daily of late years called, 
presented, and fined therein, though unjustly. Because of these pretensions I would very 
gladly purchase that Court to free all my estate from a foreign jurisdiction and occasion of 
suites for trifles, for many times much money is spent about appearing at Courts and suits * 
and services there, which are of little profit to any. 

I am perhaps partial to myself in this case, but I rely much in my Lady’s generosity ; 
I stand an old and faithful friend and servant to her house above others. You and I have 
seen middle courses, though ever so plausible, not ever prove the best. This is all I shall 
trouble you with in this matter, but that I doubt not to make good my manor of Hanmer, 
and divers other privileges in these parts, yet ex abundante I would also consider my Lady’s 
rights or pretensions. I hope now you understand me you will believe I aim only 
at my own defence, and not at lording it over my equals, whose envy, nevertheless, 1 must 
deale plainly, I had rather have than be subject to their power and dominion. I leave 
all to your consideration and friendship, only putting you in mind of what we learned at 
school, Amicus certus re incerta cernitur. As for the exchanges between us, you are 
mistaken if you think Heath’s tenement rates at £25 a year, it hath been let several tymes 
for £28, but never could reach £30. There are also for certain three lives in being in it, so 
that you have computed the reversion at two years’purchase too much. As for the present rent, 
will give you eighteen years’ purchase for it, and do expect the same for my land in Felton 
and Oswestry from you, which being demanded when we spoke together you thought not 
unreasonable. When you have leisure let me receive, I beseech you, your answer to this 
letter, and let me know whom my Lady Derby will send into these parts and when, that I 
may be at home. If he will take such entertainment as my house affords during his stay 
in this country he shall be welcome, and perhaps I may further him in the service. 
Excuse the length hereof, to which the variety and nature of the business hath enforced 
me, and accept the humble service of your affectionate and faithful friend, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

Notes out of Sir Thomas Hanmer’s Pocket Books. 

Tuesday, 2nd May, 1654. I went from London to Hengrave; and came from 
Hengrave to Haulton on Saturday the 13th of May, 1654. 

Oct. 1654. After Flint Assizes I went to London, and staid there about a week, 
* For suit and service at this Court, see Note at page 7. 


S 


64 


A MEMORIAL 


and came to Hengrave tlie 7tliof Nov r ; where I continued till the 23rd of Feb y following, 
and then came to Haulton with W. Bedow and T. Lloyd the 26th of Feb*' 1654. I left 
my wife and the two children at Hengrave. 

My mother the Lady Dorothy Hanmer died at Haulton the 12th of Nov r 1656, and 
was buried at Hanmer. 

Windsor Coach, Great Red Lion in Fleet Street and at the George at Fleet Bridge, 
2s. 6d. to Slough at the George, and 3s. 6d. at the Red Lion ; also at the White Hart by 
Charing Cross is the Reading coach, 3s. 6d. 

I came to Hengrave from London with Mr. Cowley* and William Bedow on Tuesday 
the 7th of Nov r 1654. I staid then in London just nine days, and was five days coming 
up to London from Haulton. 

March 12th, 1654. I sold 6 oxen at Whitchurch for 22/. 17s. 6<Z. 

March 31st, 1654. I paid Higinbotham for casting up clay at Willington and 
Bettisfield for 51,000 bricks at 2d. a thousand. Also I allowed out of his rent towards 
casting and turning the 20,000 at Mr. Canning’s 13s. 4 d. 

April 7th, 1655. Young Fisher is to pay 51. for the rabbits (at Haulton), and to 
destroy ’em before the end of 1655. 

April 12th, 1655. I sold a fat cow to Shrewsbury men for 4Z. Is. whereof they paid 
one shilling, and the other 4Z. they are to pay Trevor f when they fetch the cow. The 
same day Whitchurch butchers paid me for an ox 51. 4s. 2d. which I received. 

My cousin Frances Kynaston was contracted to Mr. Mainwaring the 23rd of 
August, 1656. 

I gave Jack, when he went to Oxford the end of June 1656, 71. I sent him in 
September by George Smith 20Z. to Oxford. 

I gave Jack | a note of 225Z. and sent him to Paris. I paid his tailor’s bill for 
making his black suit when he went to Oxford, 3Z. I gave him at Haulton in Jan y 1656 
to go to Anglesea, 10Z. I gave him a bay mare that cost 12Z. 

The wooden frames of the lodgings ordinarily in Covent Garden are 4 inches broad 
and 3 thick, the lower lights are 37 inches high within the frame and 15 broad, the 
lights above the transum are 19 inches high; the frames are flat, not rounded, rebated on 
the outside for the glasses and casement to fall in and on the inside for wooden shutters 
of deal. 

Books lent by me: “ Leviathan ” to my uncle Roger. First part of “ The History of 
Charles 5th,” in Spanish, to Mr. Morice of Isleworth.§ 

* This was Cowley the poet; he was a great friend of the Hervey family. A book (Le 
Cuisinier Francois) which he gave to Lady Hanmer, and is so marked in her writing, is now in 
the library at Bettisfield. 

f His daughter Trevor, afterwards Lady Warner. 

| His son John, afterwards third Baronet. 

§ There is a portrait of this Mr. Morice, by Vandyck, at Eatington in Warwickshire, 
belonging to my friend Mr. Evelyn Philip Shirley. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


65 


Tulipes sent to Sir J. Trevor, 1654: 1 Perucbot, 1 Admiral Enchuysen, 1 of my 
Angelicas, 1 Comisetta, 1 Omen, 1 of my best Dianas, all very good bearing rootes, sent 
by my wife from Iiaulton. 

June 1655. Ld. Lambert. I sent him by Rose a very great mother root of Agate 
Hanmer.* 

Lord Lambert hath the yellow jasmyn, the double striped pomegranate, many Narcissi 
of Constantinople and Algiers. Mr. Bodyngton, a merchant, furnishes Lord Lambert 
with these varieties. 

Walker of St. James’s has many Virginia plants. The locust tree, he saith, bears 
a tayle of white flowers : it comes from Virginia. 

June 1656. Tulipes given to Ld. Lambert : Belle Isabelle, Belle Susanne, etc. 

Tulipes then given Mrs. Thurloe : 2 Von Velzens, 1 Gen. Zugman, etc. Tulipes 
then given Mr. Hygens : 1 Peach Morillion, etc. etc. 

In my last letter I wrote to Moryn (P. Moryn le Jeusne dit troisieme) I would give 
but 16 pistoles for the anemonies and ranunculus I sent for in my first letter. He asked 
18 pistoles. 

I thought once of extracting here some passages from a little volume 
of out of the way Biography, relating to one of Sir Thomas’s children, 
mentioned on his monument, namely, his daughter Trevor, afterwards wife 
of Sir John Warner of Parham in Suffolk, who, with her husband and 
children, embraced the Homan Catholic religion and retired in the time of 
Charles II. into separate monasteries in Planders; hut the memoir which is 
addressed to Queen Mary of Modena by a Jesuit priest of the name of 
Nevile, one of the chaplains to the melancholy Court of St. Germain’s, 
though it describes domestic scenes and incidents of interest in this house, 
is scarcely capable of being used apart from its original intention. One 
sentence I may quote from a letter she wrote to her father after her 
change: “I thought fit to send you these, but I beseech you to forget as 
“ soon as you have read them, and to forgive me, who am the cause of so 
“ much trouble to you.” A request not unknown under similar circum¬ 
stances in some country houses at this day. A portrait of Lady Warner 
remains at Bettisfield. She inherited or shared her father’s love of flowers, 
and is mentioned with honour accordingly in Pea’s Plora; an interesting 
book, since it gives the best account of the horticulture of that period. It 

* This was a tulip grown at Bettisfield; its colours were gris de lin, crimson, and white- 
Rea speaks of it as one of the most beautiful of flowers ; and Sir Thomas, much to his credit, did 
not keep it to himself, but gave it among his friends. Lord Lambert was the Parliamentary 
General. 


66 


A MEMORIAL 


also shows by long lists of fruit trees and plants, which Sir Thomas 
Hanmer brought newly into England, how well he had employed his days 
of exile at Rouen and Angers. At the latter place his son William was 
horn, as appears by the following ordinance : 

An Ordinance for the Naturalization of William Hanmer son of 

Sir Thomas Hanmer of Hanmer, in the county of Elint, Baronet. 

Whereas Sir Thomas Hanmer of Hanmer, in the Countie of Flint, Baronet, and 
Dame Susan his wife, being about seven years sithenee in the city of Angiers in the realm 
of France, they there had borne unto them William Hanmer their son: Be it ordained 
by his Highness the Lord Protector, by the advice of his counsell, that the said William 
Hanmer be naturalized English, and the said William Hanmer is hereby naturalized 
English and made capable to enjoy and perceive all the rights, liberties, franchises, 
privileges, and immunities of an English native, in as free and ample a manner as if the 
said WTlliam Hanmer had been borne in England, any law, custom, or usage to the con¬ 
trary hereof in any wise notwithstanding. 

Hen. Scobell, 

Passed 22 nd August 1654. Clerke of the Councell. 

V 

Letter accompanying the Ordinance. 

Sir, 

Inclosed you shall receive your Ordinance, which after much labor and attendance 
Mr. Scobell delivered me with his own hands, and his service to Sir John Trevor and 
yourself remembered. I have it but at this instant, and time gives me no more scope to 
deliver myself at present, save to inform you that by the next you shall hear more at large 
from him that is and will ever remain, 

Your most assured servant, 

28 th Aug. 1654. Edw. Parrt. 

I pray let me know if this comes to your hand. 

Endorsed by Sir Thomas Hanmer : “ Pie was also naturalised again in the Conven¬ 
tion 1660 when the King returned, and the next Parliament after that, once more.” 

Content to cultivate his garden,* and to read his books at this period, 
Sir Thomas proceeded still further, in reconciliation with, or at least 
obedience to, the ruling powers, as appears by the following acquittance of 
his fine made by authority of the Protector. 

* I find the following note in his handwriting about tulips: 

“ Set them in the ground about the full moon in September, about four inches asunder 
and under four inches deep. Set the early ones where the sun in the spring may come hot on 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


67 


In the Great Court Uolle of the Exchequer of the yeare of our 


Lord 1665, in Wales. 


Elint. 


Thomas Hanmer of Hanmer, in the said county. Baronet, delinquent, owcth Sixteen 
hundred and thirty-seven pounds three shillings and fourpence, that is to say, Fourteen, 
part of Fifteen hundred pounds, for a fine upon him set or imposed by the Commissioners 
for compounding with delinquents the twenty-third day of Nov. 1645, for his delinquency 
and estate, which said fine was allowed or confirmed by the Commons assembled in Parlia¬ 
ment and not otherwise the twentieth day of March, 1646, and the residue for interest for 
the same remaining due and unpaid. But he is discharged of the said sums and all of 
them, by virtue of a Writ of his Highness Oliver Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging, 
under his said Highness’s Privy Seal, to the Commissioners of his Treasury, Treasurer, and 
Barons of the Exchequer at Westminster, Attorney-General, Remembrancer, Clerk of the 
Pipe, and other the Officers and Ministers of his said Exchequer, in that behalf directed, 
bearing date at Westminster the twenty-third day of July in the year of our Lord 1655, 
and inrolled in the Remembrance of the Exchequer at Westminster ; that is to say, among 
the Records of the terme of St. Michael, in the year of our Lord 1657, in custody of His 
Highness’s Remembrancer. And he is quitt. 

E. Croke, Clerke of the Pipe. 


After this, in June 1655, hut as it appears before the tardy registration 
of this discharge, Sir Thomas, by deed between himself and Sir 'William 
Hervey of Ickworth, and John and Thomas Hervey sons of Sir William, 
settled on his then Wife, Dame Susan, and their Sons, William and Thomas 
Hanmer, the manor house of Bettisfield, which "William accordingly 
inherited with assurance against any act done by himself, or by his father 


them. Set the later kinds where the noon sun may not be too fierce on them. Let the earth be 
mold taken from the fields, or where wood stacks have been, and mix it with a fourth part 
or more of sand. Make your beds at least half a yard thick of this mold. Tulips live best 
planted alone, but you may put some anemonies with them on the outside the beds if they be 
raised high, and round. They will come up in December and January, and the early sorts 
flower in the latter end of March and beginning of April, the other a fortnight or more after 
them. Set the mother roots by themselves, and the young offsets by themselves. The new 
varieties of tulips come from sowing their seeds, but the seedlings will be five years at least 
before they bear a flower. Keep old strong roots for seed, of such kinds as have blue cups and 
purple chives, and are striped with pure white, and carnations or gridelines or murreys. The 
single colours with blue cups or bottoms and purple chives will most of them parrach or stripe 
and will stand two years unremoved when the roots are old.” 

These and other similar instructions may be obsolete enough now, but they have some 
interest in the place where they were put in practice more than two hundred years ago. 

T 


68 


A MEMORIAL 


Sir John, or by his grandfather Sir Thomas ; tlms marking the succession 
through which it came to him. The initials of that Sir Thomas and of his 
wife Katherine Mostyn are over the fire-place in the little library. The 
oak shield of arms in the entrance is not identified by any arms of a wife 
impaled, and consists only of quartering^, of which the last, two dolphins 
hauriant, is attributed to the name of Hanmer in Sylvanus Morgan’s book of 
heraldry, and was borne in like manner by the Speaker; but I am not other¬ 
wise informed about it. There are also three crests, one of which evidently 
belongs to this coat. I surmise that it is Anthony Hanmer’s, quartered 
by Sir Thomas or Sir Jolin, after they had succeeded to that inheritance. 

The Peace which Cavaliers who would live in peace were to enjoy, 
was further announced by the following Discharge oe Decimation:— 

By the Major-General and Commissioners for securing the peace of the Nation within the 

six counties of North Wales, sitting at Wrexham the twenty-second day of July 1656 . 

Whereas we have this day received an order from His Highness and Council 
signifying that they have received satisfaction in the case of Sir Thomas Hanmer, 
Baronet, and have thereupon ordered that all proceedings against his person or estate 
upon the orders or instructions to the Major-General and Commissioners for putting in 
execution the orders of his Highness and the Council for securing the peace of the 
Commonwealth he discharged, and all further proceedings against him to be forborne. 
It is thereupon this day ordered, that the said Sir Thomas Hanmer his person and estate 
be discharged and acquitted from any further trouble or molestation by reason of any 
former allegations of delinquency whatsoever. Given under our hands the day and year 
first above written, 

A. Ellis, and others. 

Extract from MSS. of Sir Thomas Hanmer now remaining at 

Bettisfielcl on Gardening.* 

As soon as peace hath introduced plenty and wealth into a country, men quickly 
apply themselves to pleasures, and by degrees endeavour to improve them to the height. 

* In 1655 some one appears, by a note which I have lately found, to have sent Sir Thomas 
an Amaryllis lily from Barbadoes ; it was received and planted at Bettisfield in that year, and was 
esteemed a great curiosity, but it would not flower more than once ; the stems are described as 
about two feet high, the flowers of a pinkish orange hue, and the leaves, only larger, like those of 
daffodils ; the plant is common enough now, in many varieties ; I believe that from Barbadoes is 
called Equestris. 

Another note relates to some vines had by Sir Thomas from Rose, King Charles the Second’s 
gaidener in St. James sPark, two of which, one called the Lombard Vine, the other, with a small red 
berry, called the right Rhenish Grape, are said to have been personally recommended by the King. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


69 


Amongst the innocent ones, persons of quality and ingenuity have in all ages delighted 
themselves with beautiful gardens, whose chiefest ornaments are choice flowers, trees, 
and plants ; after which rarities the French and Dutch have for some years past been 
most diligent enquirers and collectors, as the Italians and Germans before them, and 
since our late war many of this nation. The rich among us now are not satisfied with 
good houses and parks, or handsome avenues and issues to and from their dwellings, 
their ambition and curiosity extends also to very costly embellishments of their gardens, 
orchards, and walks, and some spare no charge, amongst other things, in procuring the 
rarest flowers and plants to set them forth withal. Yet, though this way of beautifying 
and divertisement comes apace into fashion, few know how to choose well their materials 
of this kind, or to order and dispose of them, and so are at much charge in vain, their 
gardeners being also for the most part very inexpert and dull. To remedy this in some 
measure this ensuing Catalogue of choice plants, yet such as will bear our climate, is 
exhibited to the public,* with short directions for their preservation and increase, not 
meddling with their medicinal qualities, whereof so many volumes have been written. 
The tract is as little as may be, the intention being only for a temporary help to the 
lovers of this way of delight, forseeing that perfecter things will come forth. Thus 
much more is not unfit to be premised, that not only the whole designs or laying out of 
garden grounds are much different from what our fathers used, but the inward parts or 
works also. In these days the borders are not hedged about with privet, rosemary, or other 
such herbs, which hide the view and prospect, and nourish hurtful worms and insects, 
nor are standard fruit trees suffered to grow so high or thick as to shadow and cumber 
the soyle, but all is now commonly near the house laid open and exposed to the sight of 
the rooms and chambers, and the knots and borders are upheld only with very low 
coloured boards or stone, or tile. If the ground be spacious, the next adjacent quarters or 
parterres , as the French call them, are often of fine turf, but as low as any green to bowl 
on; cut out curiously into embroidery of flowers and shapes of arabesques, animals or 
birds, or feuillages, and the small alleys or intervals filled with several coloured sands f and 
dust with much art, with but few flowers in such knots, and those only such as grow very 
low, least they spoil the beauty of the embroidery. 

Those remote from the habitation are compartments, as they call them, which are 
knots also, and borders destined for flowers, yet sometimes intermixed with grasswork, 
and on the outside beautified with vases on pedestals, or dwarf cypresses, firs, and other 
greens, which will endure our winters, set uniformly, at reasonable distances from each 
other,J and in these great grounds beyond are either labyrinths with hedges kept cut to a 

* Sir Thomas’s collections seem to have been given to Rea and used by him in his Flora, and 
were not published by himself. 

f This fashion, of which I cannot say I approve, has been revived in several places. 

J Dryden speaks somewhere of 

- “ every tree 

“ At distance planted in a due degree.” 



70 


A MEMORIAL 


man’s height, or thickets for birds cut through with gravelly walks, or you have variety 
of alleys set with elms, limes, abeles, firs, and pines, with fountains, cascades, and statues. 
These large grounds are commonly a third part longer than broad, and cannot well be 
less than two or three hundred yards in length; but it suffices most gentlemen to have 
only a square or oblong piece of ground of three score or eighty yards, with handsome 
gravel walks; and all florists have, besides the embroidery and compartments where 
their guests amuse themselves, a little private seminary, to keep such treasures as are not 
to be exposed to every one’s view, and a winter house for shelter of plants, of which more 
hereafter, &c. &c. &c. 

Emit Trees in the Great Garden at Bettisfield, 1660, from a Memorandum 
in the handwriting of Sir Thomas Hanmer : 

Against the south wall are one apricocke from Mr. Rea, three apricockes from 
London, one peache from a French stone, raised at Bettisfield, 1660, and two red-heart 
cherries from Trevallyn. In the corner next to the turf walk one pear from Bowen, I 
think a bergamot. 

Against the west wall there, from the south wall to the door, all plums from Colonel 
Jeffreyes, except one double-flowered cherry and one Morocco plum next the door; on 
the other side the door, first a bullen plum, then a Turkey plum, then a king plum, then 
a Catalonia plum, and a duke cherry, a cornelian. 

Against the north wall these plums from Trevallyn, viz. the apricocke plum and 
the orange, and one plum from Colonel Jeffrys. 

Against the east wall in the Great Garden, May cherries; a carnation cherry about 
the middle of the wall ; a duke cherry at the end, close by the north wall ; a cornelian 
from Rea marbled, and a Turkey plum from Rea. 

Against the stack of chimneys and the wall between the chimney and the door are a 
rare vine, a vine from K. Eyton, a Bon Chretien pear, and a peach from a French stone, 
raised at Bettisfield 1660. 

Against the wall by the green turf walk are peaches that were removed from Haul- 
ton,* which came thither from London; and one peach raised at Bettisfield from a French 
stone 1660, which peach is the next to the Great Garden door next the orchard; there 
are also two heart cherries and a cornelian tree at the end by the yew tree. 

Against the wall by the gravelly walk towards the highway are all peaches, two of 
which, viz. the first next to the Court Gate is a Roman peach, and the third from the gate 
is a nutmeg peach ; the next are all peaches from stones set by me at Lewisham, and 
removed thence to Bettisfield. 

In the little court with the stone stairs against the little garden wall are three peaches 
from Mr. Bate, viz., a Morillo peach next the little garden door, then a Newington peach, 
and then a Persian peach. 

* I have an account like this of the contents of the garden at Haulton, 1654. 






OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


71 


Against the other wall, over against these peaches, are two plums from Rea. 

In the little garden against the south wall, beginning from the house, are four com¬ 
mon apricockes, then an early apricocke, then a bellowes peach, near the corner. 

Against the east wall of the little garden by the two sycamores,* are, beginning from 
the south wall, first, three peaches raised 1660, at Bettisfield, from French stones, then a 
peach de Pau, then a Savoy peach. 

1660, Flowers in the Great Garden, December. Bettisfield. 

In the first of the four little bordered beds in the midst of the bordered knot:—The 
1st is that on the right-hand the path next to the house; the ranks begin at the end 
next to the house, from the north to the south. 

Tulips. — First Rank— 1. Good marked Mother; 2. Dentelle Floras Mother; 3. New 
Hazard Mother; 4. Widow Mother. 

Second Rank—1. Proteus Mother; 2. Tellier Mother; 3. Black Prince Mother; 
4. Puissant Mother. 

Third Rank—1. Bonne; 2. Carthago; 3. Piece a portee; 4. A marked tulip. 

Fourth Rank—1. Charmante; 2. Olympia; 3. Agate Poictevin; 4. New 
Hazard. 

Fifth Rank—1. Saturn; 2. Carthago; 3. Hair colour; 4. L’abilly. 

Sixth Rank—1. Palonois; 2. Memorable; 3. Erimanthe; 4. Trois Couleurs. 

Seventh Rank—1. Jaspee Anglaise; 2. A good marked one. 

In the two further corners of the first bed are two colchicum chives, and in the 
next two corners two roots of Liere de Paris anemone. 

The second little bed is the further of the two on the right hand. In the middle ol 
this bed is one Double Crown Imperial. In the end are six rows of Iris raised from seed 
by Rea ; also polyanthuses and daffodils. In the four corners of this second bed are 
four roots of good anemones. 

The third little bed is the first of the four on the left hand. 

First Rank—1 hyacinth of Lisle, a good watchetf colour; 6 jonquils; 1 hyacinth 
of Peru. 

Second Rank—6 double yellow jonquils, and 1 black fritellary in the middle. 

Third Rank—1 gray fritellary; 6 red Deuscaninus; 1 gray fritellary. 

Fourth Rank—2 narcissus, pale wings and yellow cups; 2 musarte oriental 
narcissi. 

Fifth Rank—2 great white Argires; 2 Belles de Brussells. 

* These two sycamores were very large trees, and standing in my time, but it became 
necessary to remove them, and walnuts and deodars now grow in their place. 

f Watchet is azure or sky-blue—at least so I find it in Urry’s Chaucer, and that colour is 
certainly hyaciuthine. There are several notes on the names of colours in another of Sir Thomas’s 
pocket-books, among them are Amaranthe, a kind of liver-colour; Celadon, a kind of green; 
Bertino, a bluish grey; Turchino, a pale blue ; Gilvus, a very pale red. 

U 


72 


A MEMORIAL 


Sixth Rank—2 Belles du Val narcissi, all yellow; 2 yellow Argires narcissi. 
Seventh Rank—2 Belles Fourniere narcissi, all yellow, greater flower than the 
Argires; 2 Constantinople narcissi, double, bore not. 

Eighth Rank—2 Belle Selmane narcissi, right dear ones; 1 Bel del Vine 
narcissus, small white and yellow cup. 

Ninth Rank—1 colchicum vernale; 3 Iris dell’ Abbaye, one died ; 2 colchicum 
vernale. 

Tenth Rank—1 gray fritillare; 6 white Deuscaninus; 1 gray fritiilare. 

Eleventh Rank—6 double yellow jonquils. 

Twelfth Rank—1 hyacinth of Peru ; 6 jonquils; 1 hyacinth of Lisle. 

The fourth bed, being the further of the four little beds from the house on the left 
hand. 

First Rank—The Kind Mother, and an offset by it; 2. Dentelle Flora’s Mother; 
3. Perseus Mother; 4. good marked. 

Second Rank—Dorothy of Holland; 2. Agate Bizarre Mother and offset; 

3. Barbancon’s Mother; 4. Agate Bizarre. 

Third Rank—Supreme Mother; 2. Oronte Mother; 3. Feuillestraite, great 
offset; 4. Deepe offset. 

Fourth Rank—Agate Poictevin; 2. Barbancon’s or Carthago Mother; 3. 

Memorabile Mother and offset; 4. Charlottes. 

Fifth Rank—Susan Agate Mother; 2. Cupidon Mother; 3. Puissante Mother; 

4. Two Isabel or Agate Poictevins. 

Sixth Rank—New Hazard Mother; 2. Amazone; 3. Oriental Moryn ; 4. 
Tamises. 

Seventh Rank—1. Passye Belyn ; 2. General Norris; 3. Clytus ; 4. Good 
marked offset. 

Eighth Rank—1. Mahomet; 2. L’Abeile; 3. Carthago Mother; 4. Belle Isabel. 
Ninth Rank—1. Dieppe; 2. Phoenix; 3. Feuillstraite; 4. Aurora. 

Tenth Rank—1. Trois Couleurs; 2. Agate Hanmer; 3. Best Anglaises ; 4. 
Bonnes Bigeures. 

Eleventh Rank—Proteus Mother; 2. Heliodore; 3. Radigonde; 4. Altiquife 
or Saturn. 

Twelfth Rank—1. Guymet; 2. Velours; 3. La Fin; 4. Frigen. 

Thirteenth Rank—1. Royal Vesta; 2. Viceroy; 3. Isabella; 4. Zuyman. 

All the little bordered beds, besides the four little middle ones of that quarter, are 
full of anemones on the outsides and tulips and narcissuses in the midst, with some gilly¬ 
flowers and some irises at the ends of the beds, and cyclamens at the four corners. 

The border under the south wall in the Great Garden is full of good anemones, and 
near the musk rose are two roots of the daffodil of Constantinople from Rea, and a 
martagon pomponium. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


73 


In the border under my Lady’s closet are anemones and two pieces of Liere de 
Paris, and two double yellow ranunculuses, and a great root of Georgina tulips, and a 
root of Queen May, and some tulips, I know not what, and two good red cowslips, and 
two roots of two sorts of rare Virginian martagons. 

In the border, under the stack of chimneys by the door, are tulips, I know not what, 
and crocuses. 

In the border under the west wall, by the court door, are offsets of all manner of 
tulips and anemones. 

In the border under the north wall are beares ears (auriculas) and cowslips; some 
of the beares ears are marked, which came from Rose and Tom Turner; those that came 
from Rose last are set by the corner next to the court wall, by the duke cherry. One 
faire Frances, two purple Frances, one red bud, four roses olive, five yeomen of Kent, six 
Virgin’s gift. 

In the border under the wall within the garden by the grasse walk are several roots of 
fraxinellas, and Virginia spider worts, and primroses, and some anemonies and daffodils. 

While these anemones were growing the winds outside their garden 

walls brought the clouds in new shapes over the horizon ; the Restoration 

had taken place, and this event had a great parochial effect, especially on 

the minds of those who had been for some years accustomed to the Pres- 

«/ 

byterian ministry. The renewed prayer for the King was the “ ritualism ” 
of those days, and exercised in his mind, according to the tradition of the 
parish, as I have often heard, a worthy individual, mentioned in the 
following letter :— 

Letter from Sir Thomas Hanmer to Sir Job Charlton,* about Mr. Luke 
Lloyd of the Bryn, an ancestor of the Kenyon family in this parish. 

My Lord, 

About Michaelmas last, complaint being made to me and other justices of the peace 
in this neighbourhood of a strange, irreverent, and bold carriage of one Mr. Luke Lloyd 
the younger towards the Vicar of Hanmer Parish on a Sunday in the Church of Hanmer, 
we met together and examined several witnesses, whose depositions are here enclosed, and 
thereupon thought it our part to bind the said Mr. Lloyd to his good behaviour to 
appear before your Lordship the next Assizes in Flintshire. The reasons inducing us 
were that the giving the lie was a great provocation to the breach of the peace, and 

* Sir Job Charlton of Ludford, Bart., one of the Welsh Judges, also Chief-Justice of 
Chester, and for a short time Speaker of the House of Commons. He was father of Jane 
Charlton, wife of Thomas Hanmer of the Fens, mentioned further on. Their second son Joh 
Hanmer was named after his maternal grandfather. 


74 


A MEMORIAL 


being given in a sacred place and to a sacred person at the Communion board, we 
thought it fit to be transmitted over to your Lordship to proceed as in your wisdom 
should seem meet. Besides the former reasons, we had at that very time orders from 
His Majesty and the Lord President to have a special eye over such as conformed not to 
the Church or State, and to secure the most dangerous, and had many Nonconformists 
in this parish of Hanmer, who we feared would grow insolent if such an affront to the 
Church should pass unpunished. I having given your Lordship this account of our 
proceedings against Mr. Lloyd, I must now acquaint your Lordship that I am very 
credibly informed that Mr. Lloyd hath been with our Bishop, My Lord of Chester, and 
hath shown sorrow for his carriage, and hath promised conformity to the Church for the 
future ; the like he hath also done to me, and I hope his professions are real, divers 
of his friends having engaged their words for him, and upon their entreaties I am prevailed 
with to desire your Lordship’s gentle usage of him, which is all I have to trouble you with 
at present ; therefore I conclude, and remain 

Y r faithful servb 

Tho. Hanmer. 

Hanmer, March 12, 1665. 

Letter written the year of the Plague by Mr. Heryey, Treasurer of 
Queen Katherine, to his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Hanmer, at 
Bettisfield. 

Sir, Hengrave, 21st July, 1665. 

I have been in great pain that I have not heard of you since the 13th of the last 
month, w r hen I writt soon after to you, before my coming from London, and gave you an 
account how I should dispose of your £800, according to the liberty you gave me, as I have 
done, and left you a bond for the repayment of it within three months, and am ready to 
give any other security, though that I think as good as any I can give. I hope you have 
no thoughts but of going on with Mr Puleston. I have a good mind to the bargain, and 
would not if you please lose it, but the longer you defer it the more convenient for me, 
because I have furnished Her Majesty with all the money I had or could make, and shall 
not till about Christmas be reimbursed, and may not be till after; yet what time you 
conclude for the payment of the money, give me as early notice of as you can, and the 
money shall infallibly be ready. You I hope will take the care to have the writings made 
as they ought. I have been here ever since the 22nd of last month ; all your friends in 
these parts are well, as I hope you and my dear sister and all yours are, which I beg to 
hear from you. A letter sent by the post to London directed only for me in this place 
near Bury in Suffolk I am told will certainly come to me as that this will to you. We 
are here all abouts (thanks be to God !) very well. Some alarmes my poor melancholy 
sister Hervey and Reynolds have had of several people being sick at Bury, but no cause, 
God be praised! The carrier with his wagon is prohibited, and any more commerce with 
London. He is now kept out of the town because a servant of his died upon the way 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


75 


from London, of the sickness it is suspected, tho’ he has certificates of the contrary. I have 
had mine own house shut up at Cambridge upon suspicion too a fortnight since, but no 
more sick but that one person. How the sickness increases at London I need not tell you, 
it is too notorious. News from Hampton Court I will not send by this circle, besides I 
think I have but little. By my last I heard the Court was well and free of infection, tho’ 
there be no great strictness against commerce with London. As soon as the Irish business 
is over His Majesty intends to remove to Salisbury, and that my Lord of Cornbury has my 
Lord of Chesterfeild’s key, and Mr. Billings his seales ; if not, the newsbook will tell you. 
From hence I am sure you expect no news. My brother Tom is here. He, my brother 
George, my wife, and all your friends present their hearty service to you and my dear 
sister; so does he that heartily prays for both your healths and happiness, and all that 
belongs to you, and is your most affectionate and faithful servant, 

J. Hervey. 

Sir John Coel is at Bury, and most that belong to this country from London. My 
Lady Walpoole and her sister are at Rushbrooke. 

To my honored friend, Sir Thomas Hanmer, at Bettisfield, in Flintshire. 

To be left at Whitchurch in Shropshire by the Nantwich Post. 

Letter of the same year from Sir Eubule Thelwal to Sir Thomas 

Hanmer at Bettisfield. 

Hon d Sir. 

Some ten days since Franke Manley gave me hopes I should enjoy his company 
down from London, and we then had it in intention to kiss your hands by the way ; 
though I missed of his company I came from London with the same thoughts, but truly 
am so tired with my journey, and find here and all along apprehensions of the sickness 
so great, that I cannot judge myself fit to visit any friend till I have spent some time out 
of London air,* and have recovered the losses f of my journey. The whole Court intended 
to remove the next week, the King to Hampton Court, the Queen Mother to France, and 
the Duke to sea, for upon Monday evening a gentleman newly come from Whitehall 
assured me the news there were that about twenty sail of the Dutch were come out, and 
sailed northward, to joine as is supposed with De Ruyter and other convoys, which will 
necessitate our drawing towards the mouth of the Texel. The French talk not so loud at 

* It must have been even worse in Cardinal Wolsey’s time, when, as we read in his Life by 
Cavendish, “ he would issue out holding in his hand a very fair orange, whereof the meat or sub¬ 
stance was taken out and filled up again with the parts of a sponge, wherein was vinegar and 
other infections against the pestilent air, the which he most commonly smelt unto passing among 
the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors.” 

f Losses of leather I suppose. 


X 


76 


A MEMORIAL 


present as heretofore, yet the worst is still expected from them. Sir John Hanmer* * * § and 
his lady are both well. The sickness it is hoped decreases. If I might know where to 
have the happiness of seeing you a week hence I should be glad to ride hard for it. In 
the mean time be pleased to give my very humble service to your worthy lady, my best 
respects to my cousins if any be with you. 

I am your obliged cousin and servant, 

Eubule Thelwall. 

Whitchurch, 23rd June, 16G5. 

Other Extracts from Notes in Pocket-Books in the Handwriting 

of Sir Thomas Hanmer. 

Novemb. the 2nd., being Tuesday, 1675, my son William Hanmer f was married to 
Mrs. Peregrine North, daughter to Sir Henry North, late of Mildenhall, in the county of 
Suffolke, Baronet. The marriage was at Sir Tho. Cullom’s house at Hawsted, whose 
wife is sister to my daughter in law. 

Aug. 16th, 1676, at halfe an hower after 9 of the clocke at night, my son William 
Hanmer’s first childe was borne at Bettisfield house in Flyntshire ; it was a daughter, 
and was christened at Hanmer Church on St. Bartholomew’s day next following ; her 
name was Susanna ;J my wife and Sir Tho. Hervey’s lady were the godmothers, and Sir 
Henry North was godfather. 

My grandchild Thomas Hanmer § was borne at Bettisfield on Monday, betwixt ten 
and eleven at night, being the 24th of Septr. 1677, and was christened there by Mr. 
Hilton on Tuesday sennight following, being the 2d. of October 1677. I and my cosin 
Thomas Hanmer of the Fens were godfathers, and Mrs. Manley stood for the Lady 
Cullum of Hawsted in Suffolke as godmother. 

This Sir Thomas Hanmer served long in Parliament as member for 
Flintshire, in which capacity both he and his son Sir John, who at that 
time was member for Evesham, as afterwards for Flint, are sharply criti¬ 
cised as adherents of the Court by my honest and memorable prede¬ 
cessor in the representation of Hull, Andrew Marvel. Sir John, 

* Sir John Hanmer, then a knight, eldest son of Sir Thomas. He was Gentleman of the 
Chamber to King Charles the Second, and, being mentioned in this letter in connection with 
the Court, was perhaps in waiting at the time. 

f Eldest son of his marriage with Susan Hervey. 

| Afterwards Lady Bunbury. 

§ Afterwards Sir Thomas, fourth and last Baronet of that creation ; Speaker of the House 
of Commons. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


77 


however, would have retrieved that fault in his censor’s eyes, even at Hull 
itself, at the Revolution. Sir Thomas appears to have been happiest at 
Bettisfield among his trees and flowers. The following two letters are to 
Mr. Evelyn, who mentions him as a friend in his memoirs :— 

Sir, Bettisfield, August 22nd, 1668. 

I have had so much company with me here this summer, and so many other avoca¬ 
tions, that I had scarce time to scrible out those enclosed papers for you. They are but 
common observations, but true ones, and most of the famed secrets for meliorating 
flowers will not prove so. If you pardon my defects and accept of my desires to serve 
you I have my ends. Some other receipts I intended you, as for making cherry wine and 
cowslip wine, but I have mislaid them ; if I can find them in time I shall send them to you. 
I judged it of no purpose to speak of more sorts of flowers than I have done, these being 
the choicest, and so much having been printed of the other sorts. I long extremely to 
see your work * public, having so spacious and delicious a field to walk in, and your 
knowledge being so exact, though general, that great pleasure as well as benefit must 
needs arise to the peruser thereof. Sir, the bearer hereof is one Mr. Eyton of the Inner 
Temple, a friend of mine, as his father was of your eldest brother’s; he is a young florist 
and planter, and desires to be recommended to your acquaintance, as I very heartily do 
to you, being a very civil ingenious person. My humble service to your lady, I beseech 
you, and to my noble friend Sir Richard Browne, and accept of the same to yourself 
from, 

Sir, 

Your most humble and faithful servant, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

Bettisfield, Aug, 21th, 1671. 

Sir, 

I send you herewith some rootes of severall sorts; the bear’s ears and some of the 
anemones and ranunculus are very good, but the tulipes (except the Agat Hanmer and 
the Ariana, and some others) are not extraordinary; indeed my garden affords not now 
such varieties of rare tulipes as I had formerly; most of my best died the first yeare I 
came to live at this place, and I have not furnisht my selfe anew, because I thinke 
neither this ayer nor earth agrees with them. I suppose your flower garden, being new, 
is not very large, and therefore I send you not many things at this tyme, and I wish the 
beares eares doe not dry too much before you receave them ; they will bee a fortnight at 
least before they come to Deptford, and therfore sett them as soone as may be, and water 
them well (if it raine not) for three or fower dayes, and plant them not in too hott a sun. 
I thought once to have ventur’d some gilliflowers, having about two yearcs since raisd 

* Probably the Sylra. 


78 


A MEMOKIAL 


some very good ones from seed (w h I never did before nor I tliinke never shall againe, 
because the wett in England hinders the ripening of the seed more than in Holland and 
Flanders); but there is such store of excellent ones all about London, that I had not the 
confidence to adventure any to your view; and I doubted whether being soe long on the 
way would not kill them. S r , I wish I were better able to serve you either in these 
bagatelles or more weighty occasions; I should with great alacrity and satisfaction, I 
assure you, lay hold on all opportunityes to express myselfe how really I am, 

S', 

Yo r affectionate faitlrfull servant, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

My wife and my selfe humbly present o r services to your worthy lady and your 
selfe, as also to my noble freind S r Richard Browne. 

I convey this letter and the box to you by my son Tom Hanmer, who is constantly 
at his chamber in ffigg tree court in the Inner Temple, and can send your commands 
to mee at any tyme. 

You will find in the box some very good bear’s eares seed, which you know better to 
sow and order than I can direct. 

Tom Hanmer, mentioned by Sir Thomas in this letter to Mr. Evelyn, 
was his third surviving son, but the second by his marriage with Miss 
Susan Hervey : of him I have but little account, but he was knighted, was 
a Bencher of the Inner Temple, and Solicitor-General to Queen Katha¬ 
rine * His monument is at present in the Temple Church, where, as the 
following inscription shows, it was erected by his mother. 

Hie juxta situs est Thomas Hanmer miles, filius 
tertius Thomce Hanmer de Hanmer ac Bettisfelcl in Comitatu 
Flintensi Baronetti (oriundi per seriem Multorum 
Militum Johanne de Hanmer Milite qui floruit 
sub Edwardo j m0 Rege) e Conjuge sua Domina 
Susanna Filia tertia Gulielmi Harvey de Ickworth 
in comitatu Suffolcice Militis, quae in Memoriam 
Filij sui Charissimi et Honorum quibus 
perfunctus est, Hoc posuit. 

Erat nimirum serenissimae Reginae 

* In a letter in 1675 he writes to his father that all his correspondence was opened at the 
post-office, and sealed again “with a kind of a lion rampant.” It may be remarked that this was 
the bearing of Jefferys, and that 1675 is about the period when that worthy was concerned in the 
general system of espionage carried on at Chiffineh’s office at St. James’s. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


79 


Katherince Sollicitator Generalis: 

Honoratissimae hujusce Societatis 
Templi Interioris unus ex assessoribus 
et Tliesaurarius Anno 1679 : 

Augustissimis Regibus Carolo 2 do 
Ac jam regnanti Jacobo 2 do 
Consiliarius, 

Alterius e Curijs Vice Comitialibus 
in Civitate Londinensi Justitiarius. 

Quibus in muneribus, Doctrine, 

Fidei, iEquitatis, Illustre extitit 
exemplar, et heus nimis cito 
terras deserens, Magnum sui 
Desiderium reliquit. 

Obijt 7 mo die Februarij * 

Anno Domini 168§ 
fiEtatis suae 36. 

I find one other letter from Sir Thomas to his relation Mr. Mostyn, 
of much the same character as those to Mr. Evelyn. 

g iR Bettisfield, April 5th, 1676. 

I had sooner acknowledged the favour of your letter and use of your books, but that 
I desired to accompany my thanks with the papers I promised you, which I had soe 
mislayed that I could not find any of them to this day. Such as I had the good fortune 
to meet with I send you herewith, together with your own two bookes. They are but 
blotted papers written in haste, and I fear you can hardly read them, or piece them 
together to understand them ; but you commanded them, and will therefore excuse all 
defects. They and I are perfectly at your service, and my wife and I are very sensible of 
the honor we received lately from Sir Roger and yourself, and present our humble 
services to you and your lady, whose hands I would have kist long since at Gloddaeth if 
I had been able to have travelled. When I shall be yet I know not ; but in all conditions 
and at all tymes I shall be and desire to approve myself 

Your most affectionate Cousin 

And faithful servant, 

T. Hanmer. 

For his honoured Cousin, Thomas Mostyn, Esqr., 
at Wrexham, Mostyn, or at Gloddeah in Caernarvonshire, 

with a small packet. 

* His will, containing a few ordinary bequests, and a request to his dear mother to pay his 
debts, is dated shortly before Dec. 9th, 1687. 


Y 


80 


A MEMORIAL 


Two years afterwards, in 1678, he died, and is recorded as ‘‘buried in 
linen” (which was contrary to the Act of Parliament*) Oct. 9th in the 
Parish Register. His monument, mentioned by Pennant, is in the left- 
hand corner of the Bettisfield Chapel, in Hanmer Church, and bears the 
following Latin inscription : 

H. S. E. 

Thomas Hanmer, Baronettus. 

Qui 

Domum id hac vicinia familige suae cognominem 
ac longa Majorum serie honestatam 
Haeres nequaquam degener accepit, 
eamque antiqua fama et fortunis florentem 
per multos annos tenuit. 

Pro sua in conciliandis Hominum animis humanitate 
Rerumque in vita agendarum prudentia 
Utilissimus inter suos eluxit. 

Utque erat ipse morum legumque Patriae apprime gnarus, 
ita summam iis observantiam 
Ea Auctoritate 

Quae idoneis Reipublicse Administris 
ex Integritatis et Sapientiae opinione 
paulatim accrescit, 
ab aliis facile exegit. 

His mentis fretus 

tanta apnd Populares suos gratia valuit 
ut quoties amplissimi Angliae ordines 
in concilium coirent 

Toties fere et ille ad ardua Regni negotia tractanda 
Deligeretur Senator. 

In quo Munere obeundo 
de vita decessit 

Oct. vi. A.D. MDCLXXVIII. Altatls suae LXVI. 

Uxorem duxit primam Elizabetham unicam Thomae Baker de Wittingham in Comitatu 
Suffolciae militis filiam, e qua duos Liberos suscepit, unum Jobannem quern sibi super- 
si tern atq> Haeredem reliquit, alteram Trevor nominatam et Johanni Warner de Parham 
in Comitatu SufFolciae Baronetto nuptam. In secundis nuptiis Susannam Gulielmi Hervey 
de Ickworth in eodem Comitatu JNIilitis filiam, et ex hac numerosam habuit Natorum 
progeniem ; superfuere Gulielmus et Thomas, cseteri finmaturi occiderunt. 


* 30th Car. II. cap. Ill, a.d. 1677. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


81 


I own that I think an English one, which I find proposed, in the 
handwriting of his widow, would have been much better. On a sketch of 
a monument copied from that of the minister, Lord Arlington, in Euston 
church, it runs thus, anticipating also that it should serve for herself:— 

“ Here lieth the body of that worthy gentleman Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, who 
lived highly esteemed, and died the sixth of October, in the sixty-sixth year of his age, 
and in that of our Lord 1678, universally lamented, but most of all by his disconsolate 
wife, who lies here by him. She was the daughter of Sir William Hervey, Knt., of 
Ickworth, in Suffolk, and died-when it shall please God.” 

This excellent lady bought out of her jointure and her own money 
much of the land in Tibroughton which I now have. She survived both 
her son William and her daughter-in-law Peregrine North, and died in 
1701, a year marked by three funerals of the family, and is entered in the 
Register of that year, buried March 7th, 

“ Dame Susana Hanmer, Relict of the Hon ble Sir Thomas Hanmer, of Hanmer 
and Bettisfield, Baronet. 

Two portraits of her are now at Eettisfield, one as a girl of six years 
old, and another a lady of mature age in a dress of white lace, with her 
arm resting on what no doubt was a favourite book of her husband’s, 
“ Gerard’s Herbal.” I find this note in one of her almanacs : 

“ My cousin Hanmer’s wife [Jane, daughter of Sir Job Charlton] of the Fens, died 
of an ague and fever, March, 1680.” 

This lady appears also, by the Parish Register, to have been buried in 
linen, and the fine imposed by the Act of Parliament to have been paid 
accordingly. 

“ Odious ! in woollen ! ’twould a saint provoke ! ” 

Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. 

says Pope, forty or fifty years afterwards, criticising the weakness of this 
infraction of the law, which lasted into his time; the two instances men¬ 
tioned here were excusable, for the statute was then but newly passed. 

In some accounts between Lady Susan and Mr. Hilton, vicar of the 
parish, who managed most of our concerns about that time, is an entry of 
some small sums of pocket money paid to her grandchildren, the children 
of William Hanmer of Bettisfield, which preserves gradations of rank and 


82 


A MEMORIAL 


order amusing enough to notice:—“ July 30th, 1688. Gave little Master 
(this was afterwards Sir Thomas the Speaker), Madam Susan (afterwards 
Lady Bunbury), and Mrs. Thomasine (afterwards Mrs. Booth), by my 
lady’s orders, £2 10s.” They were at that time respectively eleven, twelve, 
and five years old. 

Dame Susan has brought these notes to the end of the century and 
beyond it. I resume the date of 1622, and the baptism of William 
Hanmer oe the Bens, “ son of Thomas Hanmer, Esq., and Katherine 
(. Puleston ) his wife,” long contemporary with Sir Thomas the Cavalier, and 
his confederate in the Civil War. On the death of his father in 1624 he 
became a ward to the King, and must have been nearly among the latest 
of the wards,* * * § for he was not of age in 1642, when the troubles broke out, 
which among many other good and sound results were to abolish the 
feudal tenures;! not that these were originally unreasonable, but the 
country had outgrown them; so that the Act 12th Car. II. cap. 24, 
sweeping them away, and enacting, still in barbarous mediaeval jargon, 
that land should he held in “ free and common socage,” deserves to be 
ranked with the Bill of Bights, as well for its declarations as for its 
enactments. Eens Hall J was the third garrison which we established in 
this parish for King Charles, hut it speedily went the way of Hanmer and 
Bettisfield ; § nay, was more maltreated, and its owner withdrew to Shrews¬ 
bury, where he was made prisoner in the surprise of the town and castle 
by Colonel Mytton, which is narrated by Daniel Defoe in the “ Memoirs 
of a Cavalier.” Hence William, as well as his cousin Sir Thomas, had to 
visit the Committee sitting at Goldsmiths’ Hall, and the consequences in 

* This must also have been one of the abuses of regal power, contemplated in the will of bis 
relative Sir John, in the same year. 

j- Long before, in the first year of King Henry VII., Inquisitions making injurious findings 
for the King as to tenures in capite, were part of the reasons stated for the attainder of Dudley 
and Empson, under which they were executed. 

| The ancient manor-house of Fens was situated on what is now a fine farm, drained by 
Mr. Baily Denton, and it scarcely deserves its name, however appropriate it may have been to 
some land in the vicinity in ancient days. 

§ The use of garden walls, even against some of the terrible armaments of these days, has 
been shown, according to the accounts of the French and Prussian engagements, while these 
pages are under my hands. We never had a house fortified more than with a moat, and its 
ordinary courts and inclosures. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


83 


due time showed themselves, in the shape of " A Special Pardon unto 
William Hanmer Esq., of Pens Hall, in the County of Elint,” which, with 
grave constitutional irony, runs in the name, and is sealed with the great 
seal of the sovereign whom he had been serving, against the grantors of 
the pardon. They inflicted on him a fine of thirteen hundred and seventy 
pounds, as a consideration for all treasons, murders, robberies, and other 
offences committed since the 20th of May, 1642, by the said William 
Hanmer. 

Carolus Dei gratia Anglie Scotie Francie et Hibernie hex, fidei defensor, Omnibus 
ad quos presentes litere pervenerint salutem : Sciatis quod nos de gratia nostrfi speciali et 
mero motu nostro necnon de advisamento assensu et consensu Procerum et Commun in 
Parliamento nostro Anglie apud Westm r assemblat, pardonavimus remisimus et relaxa- 
vimus, Ac per presentes pro nobis heredibus et successoribus nostris pardonamus remitti¬ 
mus et relaxamus Willielmo Hanmer de Fens-liall in comitatu Flint Armigero seu 
quocunque alio nomine vel cognomine seu additione nominis vel cognominis officii seu 
loci idem Willielmus Hanmer censeatur vocetur seu nuncupetur, Omnes et singulos pro- 
ditiones tam majores quam minores ac crimina lese Majestatis necnon Rebelliones Insur- 
recciones Conspiraciones ac Misprisiones omnium eorundem Proditionum et Criminum 
lese Majestatis a vicesimo die Maii Anno Dni 1642, et ante datum presentium per 
ipsum Gulielmum Hanmer habit’ comiss’ sive perpetrat’ pro Guerra levata contra nos 
Parliamentum et Regnum nostrum Anglie predict, aut pro consiliando auxiliando sive 
assistendo in eadem Guerra. Ac etiam omnia et omnimod’ homicid’ felon’ rober’ et 
accessar’ eorundem in Guerra predicta ut prefertur habit’ fact’ sive commiss’. Cumque 
prefatus Willielmus Hanmer pro eo quod Guerram levavit contra nos Parliamentum 
et Regnum nostrum Anglie predict’ per Proceres et Communes ejusdem Parliamenti nostri 
ad finem suurn Mille trescent’ et septuaginta librarum adjudicatus et admissus fuit: Sciatis 
ulterius quod nos de consimili gratia nostra speciali ac ex certa scientia et mero motu 
nostro necnon de advisamento consensu et assensu predic’ pro nobis heredibus et succes¬ 
soribus nostris damus et concedimus necnon pardonamus remittimus et relaxamus prefat’ 
Willielmo Hanmer heredibus et assignatis suis omnia et singula terr’ tenement’ et here¬ 
ditament’ bona et catalla debita jura et credita sua quecunque ratione premissorum quovis- 

modo forisfact’ sive deperdit’ etc. etc. etc. * * * * 

* * * * * ****** 

Proviso quod hoc Concessio et Pardonatio nostra non extendat ad habiliend’ prefat’ 
Willrh Hanmer ad aliquod officium functionem sive locum publice fiducie in Ecclesia 
sive Republica &c. &c. In Cujus rei testimonium has literas nostras fieri fecimus 
Patentes. Teste me ipso apud Wcstmonast. vicesimo quinto die Februarii Anno Regni 
nostri vicesimo secundo. 

Per Ordinationem Parliamenti. 

z 


84 


A MEMORIAL 


This, which I have abridged of many long-drawn clauses and recitals, 
is a memorial of the trouble gentlemen were apt to get into in those days, 
and after all it is not quite so bad as what a questionable expenditure of 
twenty pounds at a contested election might bring about now. 

Certificate for this Composition. 

We upon our knowledge do certify that William Hanmer Esquier was a long time 
resident here in London untill about the 20th of November last, at which time he had our 
passe to travell unto Shrewsbury upon his earnest occasions, leavinge behind him an 
agent to despatch his business heare, and to enter his name to compounde for the delin¬ 
quency, wherefore we desire his name may be entred for that purpose. 

Tho. Myddleton. 

5th January 1645. 


Depositions in the same Matter. 

Richard Whitehall of Bronington, in the county of Flint, gent., maketh oath that 
William Hanmer of the Fenns, in the County of Flint aforesaid, Esquire, now is and for 
the space of twelve months last past hath continued in the Parliament’s quarters, and the 
said deponente doth further make oath that there is one annuity or rent-charge of fortie 
marks p annu issuing forth of the lands of the said William Hanmer to be paid quarterly 
to Humphrey Hanmer, uncle of the said William, during his natural lief. 

And Francis Wood of Doddington, in the county of Salop, husbandman, doth also 
make oath that the Mansion House of him the said William Hanmer, called the Fenns 
Hall, hath been heretofore garisoned by the Parliament’s forces, and he thereby lost much 
of his household goods, and sithence it hathe been by them in part pulled down and other¬ 
wise defaced, to the damage of him the said William Hanmer 500'‘ at leaste, And this 
Deponente doth further make oath that the capital messuage, landes, and tenements in 
Moreton Say, Stoake, and Bletchley, in the county of Salop, are in controversy, and that 
the said M r Hanmer being in possession was not long since cast out and the possession kept 
against him by one Robert Deakine, gent., and divers others unknown to this Deponente, 
yett since the said M r Hanmer hath gained the possession thereof againe, and as yet 
continues therein, but hee the said M r Hanmer is threatened by them that he shall not 
long hold the possession, alleadging that they or some of them have a right and title 
thereunto. 

Rich: Whitehall. 
the marke of (x) Fran: Wood. 

Ambo jurat’ decimo tercio die Marcii, 

1645. Coram me 

Joh’e Page. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


85 


William Hanmer married twice, the first time with Eleanor Warbur- 
ton of Arley, a lady, according to her pedigree sent to me from the Heralds’ 
Office, of historic descent, since she numbered among her ancestors Sir 
William Stanley of Bosworth Eield. By her he had his son and successor, 
Thomas Hanmer of the Pens. His second wife, after the death of this lady 
in 1649, was Mary Sneyd of Keel, to a descendant* of whom in the next 
century a contingent remainder failing the heirs of Sir Walden Hanmer, 
who were however numerous, was given. Mary Sneyd died in 1660, 
and her husband afterwards in 1669. Some corroboration of the descent 
of his first wife Eleanor Warhurton, as above given, is afforded by the 
old ballad called “ Lady Bessye ” in the Percy Collection, in Part V.» 
headed, “How Bichmond lands in England and marches to Bosworth”:— 

Sir William Stanley at the Holt he lies 
and looketh over his head so high, 
which way standeth the wind ? he says, 
if there be any man can tell me ; 

The wind it standeth now South West, 
so said a Knight that stood him by, 
this night yonder royal prince 
into England entereth he ; 

he called that gentleman that stood him by, 
his name was Rowland Warburton, 
he bad him go to Shrewsbury that night, 
and bad them let that Prince in come. 

&c. & c. &c. &c. 

The statement therefore that the daughter of Sir William Stanley 
married into the Warhurton family has poetic as well as heraldic colour 
about it; but I do not offer the ballad as evidence, after the fashion of 
one of the late claimants of the Breadalbane peerage. 

The names of William Hanmer and his cousin were among those of 
the gentlemen chosen for the Order of the Boyal Oak, which however was 
not finally ventured upon amid the various interests of the Restoration. 
A lease which he granted in 1646 was blown out of the thatch of the 

* This was Col. William Hanmer. He died s.p. as I find set forth in some Chancery pro¬ 
ceedings in Humphry Hanmer’s time. 


86 


A MEMORIAL 


farm-house near Talarn Green by a high wind in February 1850, two 
hundred and four years afterwards, and served to give a proximate date to 
that kind of building, of oak framework in three hays, which has gone out 
with the long-horned cattle, hut, like them, was common over all this 
district till replaced by modern improvements. 

The following summons, signed by him and others, was the forerunner 
of the deprivation of Mr. Steele, the intruded Presbyterian minister of the 
parish during the Commonwealth :— 


Upon complaint made to us by Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, Patron of the Church 
of Hanmer under mentioned, that you M r Steele have entered upon and possessed your¬ 
self of the said Church and Vicarage of Hanmer, with the appurtenances, and do still 
hold the same without any lawful title thereto, to the prejudice of the right of him the 
said Sir Thomas Hanmer, We whose names are subscribed being impowered by a 
certaine Act of Parliament made this twelfth year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord 
King Charles the Second, intitled An Act for the restoring and confirming of Ministers, 
to be Commissioners to execute all and singular the powers and authorities thereby 
granted within our precints, according to the said Act, for and concerning the removing 
and restoring of divers Ministers, and for the determining all differences touching the 
same, until the 24th day of December next, do hereby require you the said Richard 
Steele to be and personally to appear before us at the house of John Hawkins in Hanmer 
upon Monday being the 29th day of this present month of October, by ten of the 
clock in the morning, there to shew and produce before us your title to the said Vicarage 
of Hanmer aforesaid, or to officiate in the said Church, that we may proceed in doing 
what shall be just and conformable to the said Act, and hereof you are not to fail. 
Given under our hands and seales this twentieth day of October, 1660. 

Roger Puleston. 

Ken. Eyton. 

John Broughton. 
William Hanmer. 
Thomas Lloyd. 


To Mr. Richard Steele, Minister of Hanmer, 
in the County of Flint. 


The ministry of this unlucky divine had been eminent in the parish ; 
but he was not likely to overcome the sin of its origin in the early days of 
King Charles the Second ; nor had he much rest for the soles of his feet for 
some time afterwards. Driven from the Church porch, he was charged 
with frequenting conventicles; the story is told 4th October 1663, in a 
MS. diary of the well-known Philip Henry. 


OP THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


87 


“ Reports of a plot, Mr. Lloyd* and Mr. Steele secured, I am yet at liberty; 10th, 
“ this morning I was fetched to Hanmer, and put in Susan Coxon’s house, an alehouse 
“ in the town; 14th, we were called on to appear: Sir Thomas Hanmer and Mr. William 
“ Hanmer of Fens were present; Sir Thomas told us we were arrested on suspicion of a 
“ plot, and for attending conventicles; finding securities we were then discharged.” 

A few days afterwards occurs the following entry: 

“ Oct. 25th, this day died Sir Evan Lloyd, Governor of Chester, of a drunken 
“ surfeit ; the chief wheel, as I hear, in our late troubles.” 

A quotation out of the Old Testament, in the style of the Common¬ 
wealth, concludes the note of a scene so much to be deprecated, at our 
ancient Petty Sessions. 

I find nothing more of William the Cavalier, except his death in the 
Parish Register. In 1670 his son Thomas (notice of whom I will post¬ 
pone till I have done with Sir John the third Baronet and one or two 
others,) was reigning in his stead. 

In the memoir of Lady Warner, it is told how she and others were ol 
a party to see the great funeral of Oliver the Protector. Her marriage, and 
that of her brother to Miss Mary Alston, who was also there, took place 
shortly afterwards in June 1659 in London: after which her brother, who 
had already inherited the estate of Wliittingham from his maternal rela¬ 
tives,! and also acquired with his wife considerable property in Suffolk 
and at Hinton, not far from Evesham, made some arrangement with his 
father, by which he entered into occupation of Hanmer, where he rebuilt 
the house, and planted an oak wood about it with allees and avenues after 
the Erench manner. The first woodcock I ever shot was there, and its 
thickets were perhaps what I most regretted when I determined to dis- 

* I think this was Luke Lloyd of the Bryn ; he had borne arms under Cromwell. His 
descendant, the second Lord Kenyon, once showed me his sword. Mr. Steele is mentioned in 
another entry as far on as 1671: “ Mr. Steele with me. Mr. Fogg met him here, who, with myself, 
“ are all in Flintshire that suffer for Nonconformity at this day.” There is a portrait of Philip 
Henry on the same canvas with one of Dr. Busby of Westminster, at Christ Church, Oxford. I 
have sometimes thought it possible that Sir Richard Steele the Essayist might have been related 
to our Presbyterian Vicar. 

f Elizabeth Baker, his mother, was great-great-grandaughter of Sir John Baker, who in 
the reign of King Edward VI. a.d. 1547, was Speaker of the House of Commons. 

2 A 


88 


A MEMORIAL 


mantle that place in favour of Bettisfield, hut it had been a good deal 
“ tonsa bipennibus ” before my time. 

In the next year, immediately after the Restoration, having been ap¬ 
pointed one of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber of King Charles the 
Second, he received the following acknowledgment for some money he 
had lent the King : he also appears to have been knighted. 

Acknowledgement for Money advanced by Sir John Hanmer, Knt. to 

King Charles the Second. 1660. 

Trusty and wellbeloved, wee greet you well. Whereas we are given to understand by 
Sir Evan Lloyd,* Bart., that, during the time of his negotiating our affairs and concern¬ 
ments, you did by his direction disburse six hundred pounds for our service, and would 
not accept of any Privy Seal for the same, tho’ offered unto you, this free act of yours in 
the time of our necessity we cannot pass by without our especial notice, and doe hereby 
give you this assurance, that, when occasion shall be offered, we will not be unmindful 
thereof, and so we bid you farewell. Given at our Court at Whitehall, this 21st day of 
January, in the 12 th year of our reign. 

To our trusty and wellbeloved servant Sir John Hanmer, Knt. one of the gentlemen 
of our Privy Chamber. 

In the same year he was, as I suppose, gratified by an office under 
the Crown valuable to sportsmen, for a part of which, in a few manors, 
I have known a seat in Parliament regularly vacated,! that of keeper of 
the game in the Crown lordships of the six counties of North "Wales. This 
office was renewed 28th Pebruary, 14th William III. to his nephew, then 
Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet. 

I find it also noted in the Calendar of State Papers of Charles the 
Second that he got together a body of sixty horse in 1660, when the King 
was expected, thirty-five of which were raised and mounted by himself. J 
Twenty-four years afterwards, in the summer of 1684, Sir John and 
his cavalry are mentioned in the Progress of the first Duke of Beaufort, 

* This was the Governor of Chester, whose death was noted by Philip Henry. He was 
owner of Bodidris. 

t The present Sir W. W. Wynn vacated his seat for the county of Denbigh, and was 
re-elected, on such an appointment in the lordships of Bromfield and Yale. 

f This was a step taken by many Royalists, before Monk had declared himself, and before 
Lambert had been secured. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


89 


as Lord President of Wales, through the northern part of the principality, 
which has been printed by the present Duke. 

“ The Flintshire troop was led by Sir John Hanmer, Bart., an excellent horse offieer, 
“ whose equipage, sumpters, led horses caparisoned, &c. were very noble, and altogether 
“ like a soldier, being so mounted himself.” 

Sir John’s name occurs not unfrequently in Grey’s Parliamentary 
Debates. In Lingard’s History of England he is mentioned together with 
Lord Cavendish, afterwards the first Duke of Devonshire, as engaged in a 
fierce party dispute in Committee, in which swords were drawn, and which 
caused the Speaker suddenly to resume the Cham without order, to put an 
end to it. He was member for Evesham and for Elint. In 1670 
he was one of the Commissioners of the Navy, and among the few papers 
of his which remain here I find a complete list of ships with their men, 
proposed to he sent to sea the next summer, by order of the Duke of York, 
which is sufficiently curious for extraction. 


October 8th, 1670. 

A list of y e shipps proposed to be sett forth for y e next summer’s service, in pursuance 
of his Royal Highness’s order of y e 25th September, 1670:— 


Rate. 

Shipp’s Names. 



Men. 

Rate. 

Shipp’s Names. 

Men. 

1st. 

R. Soveraigne . 


• 

850 

1st. 

St. Andrew 

. 750 


Prince 


• 

800 

4th. 

Ruby 

. 220 


Charles 


• 

700 


Dover 

. 200 

2nd. 

Victory . 


• 

530 


Crowne 

. 200 


R. Katherine 



530 

5th. 

Milford . 

. 140 


Henry 


• 

530 

3rd. 

Resolution 

. 400 


St. George 


• 

460 

4th. 

St. David 

. 260 


Triumph . 


• 

500 


Bristol 

. 220 

3rd. 

Dreadnought 


• 

360 

1st. 

R. James . 

. 750 


French Ruby . 


• 

360 

2nd. 

St. Michel. 

. 550 


Dun kirk e 


• 

340 

3rd. 

Monmouth . . 

. 400 


Plymouth 


• 

340 


Rupert 

. 400 


Ann 


• 

340 


Cambridge 

. 400 


Lyon 


• 

340 


Warsprite 

. 400 

4 th. 

Leopard . 


• 

280 


Edgar 

. 400 


Antelope . 


• 

220 


Fairfax 

. 340 


Bonaventure 


• 

220 


Gloucester 

. 340 








90 A MEMORIAL 


Rate. Shipp’s Names. 


Men. 

Rate. Shipp’s Names. 

Men, 

Monke 

• 

. 340 

Eagle 

. 150 

Yorke 


. 340 

Nightingale 

. 140 

4th Adventure 


. 170 

4th. Mary Rose 

. 220 

Tiger 


. 180 

Portland . 

. 240 

Diamond . 


. 220 

French Victory 

. 160 

Yarmouth 


. 240 

Successe . 

. 155 

5 th. A new 5 th rate. 


. 170 

Mermaid . 

. 140 

Nine ketches to be manned 

with 10 men 

F ountaine 

. 160 

each. 



And 15 fireshipps at 40 men 

each. 


However, by 1688 he was quite ready to join in the Revolution, then 
necessary. King James the Second includes him by name among his 
adversaries in the St. Germain’s Notes published in Macpherson’s State 
Papers. 


“ The King soon after his' arrival at London had advice that Sir J. Hanmer, Lt.-Col. 
“ of Montgomery’s regiment in garrison at Hull, hearing that several lords were up in 
“ several parts of the realm, and, combining with Copley the Lieutenant-Governor and 
“ some magistrates, had surprised the governor Lord Langdale and Lord Montgomery by 
“ night in their lodgings, declared for the Protestant religion, and kept these two lords, 
“ and some Roman Catholic gentlemen of the country who had retired there for safety, 
“ prisoners, and then let them go.” 

This incident of his life was first related to me at Hull itself, by the 
side of the citadel ditch, where I stood and was elected member there 
many years since, and it appeared that “ towns-taking day ” had been 
kept as a kind of local festival for a long time. The keen winds of that 
period much invigorated my kinsman’s political constitution, which, if I 
may judge by Anchitel Grey’s short notices of several of his speeches, 
was not without some damage in the preceding reign. Having taken his 
seat in the Convention Parliament, he went in 1689 in command of his 
regiment to Ireland, embarking at Mostyn, as I find marked upon an old 
map of the River Dee. 

The first service in which he took part was the relief of Londonderry 
but, though he went regularly through the campaigns of that and the 
succeeding year, I do not find any particular personal adventures of his, 
such as would be answerable to the purpose of this book, until the Battle 









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OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


91 


of the Boyne, where the tradition of our house always has been that he 
was distinguished. The descendant of an old servant of his used to tell 
me how he “ heat King James ; ” and certainly according to Story’s account 
he went so far as to beat King James’s son, the Duke of Berwick. Before 
this he had at the place where he crossed the stream opposite the Irish 
batteries,* marked by the letter N in the map of 1G93, scared Lord Antrim’s 
foot, who, the contemporary historian, present on the field at the time, 
says, could not he persuaded to come near him. Then he was charged by 
cavalry. 

“ Whilst this action (between the Dutch infantry and some horse) lasted, another 
“ party of the Irish horse charged Sir John Hanmer as he passed the river; it was the 
“ Duke of Berwick’s troop of guards, and as they advanced, one that had formerly been 
“ in Sir John Hanmer’s regiment came out singly, and called one of the captains by his 
“ name, who stepping towards him, the other fired both his pistols at him, but was taken 
“ prisoner; this troop was beat off again, with the loss of only three of Sir John 
“ Hanmer’s men.” 

Descriptions of battles when inspired by other books, or at least not 
written by some one who has been under fire, too often resemble the works 
of scene-painters; even great penmen have not risen above the rate of 
Bassano or Jordaens. But Story was himself on the field of the Boyne, 
and his contemporary narrative, which is not improved by modern em¬ 
broidery, furnishes the staple of Lord Macaulay’s account of that action. 
The original writer was chaplain to Sir Thomas Gower’s regiment, and a 
very good prototype of the modern military correspondent: his book, 
which is in this library, is now rare. After the battle of the Boyne, Sir 
John Hanmer’s name appears in Story’s list of King William’s general 
officers in Ireland; he was also elected for Carlingford. The original of 
the following letter addressed to him about this time by the well-known 
Sir John Trevor was given by me to the late Lord Dungannon, representa¬ 
tive of its writer; as it is referred to and printed by Lord Campbell in his 
lives of the holders of the Great Seal, vol. iv. p. 49, I may here repeat it. 

* The leader of the troops next to Sir John Hanmer’s regiment is shown upon the annexed 
map to have been Count Nassau—he was brother to the wife of Lord Arlington. I have through 
Sir Thomas, the Speaker, inherited some of this lady’s plate. 

2 B 


92 


A MEMORIAL 


Sir John Trevor to Sir John Hanmer. 

Honored Sir, 

Your owne civilities to me are ill requited by this frequent troble, but I hope you have 
charity enough too, to beleeve I want not a proportionable sense of your favours. I perceive 
the tyde runs high in our country, and that my complexion will not answer their zeale ; for 
the election in that county I perceive Mr. Grosvenor and Mr. Middleton have prepared 
the country against me, by a discourse they have made of me in reference to Sir George 
Booth and Sir Thomas Middleton’s indemnity in the last Parliament, which tastes so 
little of truth that Sir George Booth I believe will owne mee as one of the best friends he 
had in that affayre from the beginning to the end. But if you please to use this to my 
advantage when you see cause, I shall most willingly owne the obligation to you. I have 
sent the writt by Mr. Crachly, who sets out to-morrow. Sir, I do once more take the con¬ 
fidence to entreat your assistance in this affayre, which I never was concerned in before 
now, and am sorry I cannot have leave to come down myselfe to attend to it to redeeme 
myselfe from so unhandsome and so unfriendly a returne. But I assure you, Sir, you will 
never find an occasion more agreeable to my temper to oblige, Sir, 

Your most faithful humble servant, 

John Trevor. 

There is little else but a homely anecdote or two relating to him. I 
have heard how, though he was very extravagant, he came into the kitchen 
at Hanmer, and desired the people not to waste the bread, for he said he 
had been where he had known the want of it. He kept hounds early and 
late in his life, and in some old churchwardens’ accounts I have seen a 
payment to his huntsman * out of the church-rates for killing foxes. 
Some years after, he died suddenly in Suffolk, and was buried at Hannier 
12th August, 1701.f Ora pro anima ejus— for it is to be feared he fell in 
a duel. He had an only daughter, who died early unmarried, and was 
succeeded by his nephew Sir Thomas, fourth Baronet. There is a good 
miniature of him here, and a portrait in oil from that, by Philip Corbet of 
Shrewsbury, an artist who, if he had persevered, would have obtained 
perhaps eminence in his profession. 

* Thomas Bernice, huntsman to Sir John Hanmer, is entered among the burials at Hanmer, 
October 19th, 1663. 

f His regiment was in Ireland at the time, for on the preceding 4th June there is a des¬ 
patch from the Lords Justices to Lord Rochester acknowledging one from him, stating “ in what 
manner his Majesty has been pleased to fill up the vacancies in Major-General Stewart’s and Sir 
John Hanmer’s regiments, and mentioning the latter as to stay in Ireland .—Rochester Corre¬ 
spondence , vol. ii. p. 375. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


93 


Roger Hanmer of Gredington, younger son of Sir Thomas Hanmer, 
Knt. and Katherine his wife, daughter of Sir Roger Mostyn, christened 
2nd May, 1605, died unmarried in 1672, five or six years earlier than his 
nephew, for his friendly offices to whom in the sequestrators’ time, and 
otherwise, he deserves remembrance. I have the copy of the Leviathan, 
which, in his memoranda of those days, the Cavalier Sir Thomas says he 
had lent to his uncle Roger. It is not out of the way to remark in 
passing what books younger brothers of country gentlemen, or indeed the 
elder ones of that period were conversant with ; even among those most 
retired, “ unlettered and unpolished ” * as they are charged with having 
been in the late History of England, they had certainly not then 
declined to the level of Sir Roger de Coverley, or of his friend Will Wimble. 
The expression however may be challenged in our parish; but the 
immense number of facts brought together in the work that contains it, 
is like the Milky-way, and some part of it may well be nebulous, all the 
better for those w r ho attempt to scrutinize it as with a telescope, if the limits 
which they search come out into clearer view. Roger Hanmer was pos¬ 
sessed of lands in Penley, a small remnant of which still belongs to me. 
The present house of Gredington, it should be said, is none of his, but has 
been mostly built by the Chief Justice and the second Lord Kenyon. The 
name of Llanerchpanna, to be seen in ancient records, as of a vill belonging 
to the district in Maelor Hundred, long perplexed me, and it was not till 
lately that, by an endorsement on one of them, I discovered it meant 
Penley; this may give some clue to an odd and otherwise unintelligible 
name of another place not far off, which is called “ Three a penny.” Tre 
erch panna is perhaps the Welsh origin of this word, once denoting (Tre), 
a village, (erch pannaf) of the fulling-mill: it is now a fox-cover. 

Of William Hanmer of Bettisfield, half-brother of Sir John, and his 
wife, Miss Peregine North, there is but little to be told; I have mentioned 

* In the Memoirs of Lady Warner, the early part of which relates to the time when her 
father was nearly ruined by the civil war, it is said that she taught herself the French, Italian, 
and Spanish languages. Sir Thomas says in the same note that I have referred to, he had lent 
the History of Charles the Fifth in Spanish to another friend. 

f Panna, I believe, is derived from Pannus, cloth ; Llan erch panna is the chapelry of the 
place. There was a fulling-mill not far distant some years since in Halghton township, 
on the Pandy brook, and there may have been two or three on the neighbouring brooks in remote 
times. Pandy is a fuller’s house I have seen Penley spelt Pendeleigh. 


94 


A MEMORIAL 


their marriage and tlie births of their two elder children in 1675, 6, and 7, 
which last was the last year of his father’s time. He kept hawks and bred 
horses,* for there are entries about each in his handwriting. There is no 
portrait of him that I know of, but one of his wife by Sir Peter Lely is, I 
believe, at Barton in Suffolk, belonging to the descendant of his eldest 
daughter, and otherwise my cousin, Sir Charles Bunbury. It seems 
odd that in this house where he lived there should be now so few traces of 
him. In his marriage settlement, which is here, he is prohibited from 
leasing Bettisfield or the park adjacent or any part of it. I have not observed 
previous mention in any deed of this park, and it probably dates from 
1663, when a note in an almanac says that the paling was begun at 
Christmas. It is certainly not an ancient one, and, if it had been, the pales 
have been so altered, even in my own time, that, according to the decision 
in the case of Eridge, no claim to the deer could be sustained as appurte¬ 
nant to the land. It is said that a breed of wild cattle was once kept in 
it; but any cattle, if they are sufficiently neglected, will run wild, and a 
short-horned heifer of my own, which somehow eluded the herdsman, did 
so some years ago, and hid her calf in the fern, and ran with the deer and 
fawns, and in the end was shot by the keeper when very fat, in manner 
conformable to the life she had adopted. 

William Hanmer’s only public function was that of High Sheriff 
of Elintshire, in which capacity it seems then to have been necessary to 
obtain formal leave of absence from his county. This is granted in the 
single name of Queen Mary. 

Marie R. 

Trusty and well-beloved, We greet you well. Whereas humble suite has bin made 

* One of his stud horses was Sir John Trevor’s “ Grey Middleton.” I was not aware till 
I found this memorandum of it, that our neighbour the then Master of the Rolls indulged in 
this pursuit, which, however, has something in it conformable to the imaginative character of 
Welshmen. The name of Middleton shows that the horse came from Chirk. I take this oppor¬ 
tunity to correct an error which runs through all the books on the interesting history of the 
English thorough-bred horse, that King James I. gave 500Z. for the Markham Arabian. On 
the contrary, 400/. appears by the Records of the Exchequer to have been the whole expense 
allotted by that Sovereign for the purchase of horses in any one year: and as to the one in 
question, the entry is, “Item 20th December, 1616, paid to Master Markham for the Arabian 
horse for his Majesty’s own use, 154/. Item the same day paid to a man that brought the 
same Arabian horse and kept him, 11/.” 


OF THE PARISH OF HAN ME 11. 


95 


unto us on your behalfe, that during your Sherivalty of our county of Flint you may 
have license to remaine or live out of our said county, in regard you have severall 
pressing affairs which require your presence elsewhere. We are graciously pleased to 
gratify you in that your request; and We do accordingly hereby give and grant you full 
license and permission during your said office of Sheriff to remaine or dwell out of our 
said county, not doubting but you will take all fitting care that such your absence prove 
not prejudiciall to our service And so we bid you farewell. Given at our Court at 
Whitehall, the loth day of March, 169^, in the fourth yeare of our reigne. 

By her Majesty’s command, 

Nottingham. 

William Hanmer, Esq. 

H.S. of Flint. License of Absence. 

He died in 1695, and his wife a few months after him; they were 
buried at Hanmer. Their children, as I have already noted in an extract 
from Mr. Hilton’s accounts, were Thomas, afterwards the Speaker, Susana 
Lady Bunbury, and Thomasina Mrs. Booth. They had also a son William* 
who died in infancy. 

Thomas Hanmer of the Pens, whose death in August 1701 is adverted 
to by Mr. Gough, in his book about Middle, as an instance of the mor¬ 
tality of that year, completes the number of the heads of our family in the 
seventeenth century. He lived in that condition for thirty-two years, a 
peaceful and rural life, about the limits of which the great waves of public 
affairs only broke like expended rollers along a secluded shore. I perceive, 
however, by Narcissus Luttrell’s diary, that he once stood an election for 
Ludlow in which he was not successful. There is a deed of his in 1671 
leading to the uses of a settlement* after his marriage, then already 
solemnized, with Jane, eldest daughter of Sir Job Charlton of Ludford, 
long Chief Justice of Chester, and about the period of his daughter’s 
marriage Speaker of the House of Commons. Sir Job appears very 
soon to have relinquished that office, which he ought rather to have 
held with courage mounting to the times. Certainly, Lord Shaftesbury 
the Chancellor, in conveying the King’s approbation of his election, 


* This settlement follows what seems to have been a frequent practice in our family, the one 
house entailing on its own heirs male, and failing them on the heirs male of the other : Hanmer 
on itself and Fens—Fens on itself and Hanmer, by dint of which, after having been separated 
since the Lancastrian times, they were reunited in the last century. 

2 c 


96 


A MEMORIAL 


made a strong draft upon his devotion to King Charles the Second, for he 
declared— 

“ The King may on this occasion say, lie that is not with me is against me, he that 
doth not now put his hand and heart to support the King in the common cause of this 
kingdom can hardly ever hope for such another opportunity, or find a time to make 
satisfaction for the omission of this.” 

To find himself expected to be a manager for the Court, as Speakers 
formerly were, might disturb a timid mau whose ostensible duty was to 
uphold the privileges of the House of Commons. He perhaps thought, 
seeing something of what was soon to come, 

“ Vexilla regis prodeunt inferni .”—Inf. cant. 34. 

Still one great act of Parliamentary justice against the schemes of those 
days was accomplished while he was yet in the chair, declaring all the 
seats vacant which had been filled by elections held only under the writs 
of the Lord Chancellor.* Sir Job Charlton was afterwards one of the 
Judges at Westminster; but he w T as dismissed from this office in 1686, by 
King James the Second, with I think three other Judges, because they 
refused to give judicial warrant to the King’s unconstitutional exercise of 
a dispensing power. He lived till 1697, when his son-in-law Thomas 
Hamner was his executor, soon to claim such duties at the hands of other 
for himself. 

Of the three children surviving of this marriage, William, Job, and 
Dorothy, we are principally concerned with Job, the second son, baptized 
at Hamner January 17th, 1677, who is our lineal ancestor. Dorothy 
Hamner married into the Herefordshire family of Cornwall, and her 
grandson was Charles Wolfran Cornwall, Speaker of the House of Com¬ 
mons. He is buried at St. Cross, near Winchester, where one day, without 
expecting it, I saw his monument. I had just before amused myself by 
thinking I was bound to decline the Lancastrian drink, offered me as a 
stranger at the door, from the dole of Cardinal Beaufort. 

The following letter, from a young lady of 1696 to her brother at 
Baliol, has at least the advantage of being seen in the far distance :— 

* The right order was stated long before by Speaker Croke, in 1601. It was for a warrant 
to go from the Speaker to the Clerk of the Crown, whose duty it was to inform the Lord Keeper, 
or Chancellor, and then to issue a new writ. 


97 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


June ye 26th, 1696. 

Dear Brother, 

I received your two letters, and am glad to hear you are well. The enclosed is the 
first bill we could get since you writ for money, which was the occasyon of my being so 
long silent. Pray send word if your bill be accepted, and what you pay for this letter, 
and whether Robart has any wall frute in y e physick garden this year, any store. My 
father is very well, and sends his blessing to you, and so is my brother and I, and give 
our service to you. My brother intends to write quickly. We had a horse race uppon 
Prees heath; the great plate was worth near fifty pound ; there ran seven horses for it; 
my Lord Rosses horse got first. S r Th. Grosvenor had a horse run, and y e Captain 
Lightfoot he had one, and others which my brother will send word of, and other news.* 
My brother goes a courting to M rs Susana IJanmer.f My brother hastens me ; so, dear 
brother, I desire you’ll believe I am your ever loving 

Sister to command, 

Dorothy Hanmer. 

Nurse gives her service to you. 

For M r Job Hanmer, Baliol College, in Oxford, present. 


The line of each of the two brothers of Dorothy Hanmer, mentioned 
in her letter, succeeded in its turn to the representation of the family in 
the ensuing century; that of William, the eldest, who married Esther 
Jennings of Gopsal in Leicestershire, through his son William, upon the 
death of Sir Thomas Hanmer, the Speaker, which happened the 7th May, 
1746, and afterwards through his son Humphry, on the decease of the 
latter William, in March, 1754, without male heirs. On the death of 
Humphry, in like manner, in 1773, the line of Job, his uncle, who had 
then already deceased, 3rd March, 1738, inherited, according to the settle¬ 
ment: by the marriage of the latter with Susana, daughter of Thomas Walden, 
Esqr., of Sympson in Buckinghamshire, of an ancient family formerly settled 


* A race meeting under the name of Whitchurch, which must have taken place on Prees 
Heath, appears in the Calendar of 1727. Such meetings were looked upon as of considerable 
importance in those unsettled days, on account of the number of mounted persons whom they 
brought together. I think it was to obtain popularity for the new royal family on such occasions, 
much more than to improve the breed of horses, that in the course of the ensuing century so 
many King’s plates were given. 

•j- She was married at Hanmer, May 15th, 1699, to Sir Henry Bunbury, Bt., of Bunbury and 
Stanney, in Cheshire. 


98 


A MEMORIAL 


in the counties of Kent ancl Huntingdon, he was the father of my great¬ 
grandfather, Sir Walden Hanmer,* Bart. All this, with such material as I 
have hitherto gathered, up to the close of my grandfather’s time, will find 
its proper place in the sequence of another chapter. It is time to conclude 
with this, for it has extended from the reign of King Edward the Eirst to 
the accession of Queen Anne, from the latter part of the thirteenth to the 
beginning of the eighteenth century. The stepping-stones which I have 
found over that long period may be few and trivial in themselves, yet, 
collectively, they may be not unanswerable to their purpose, and I hope 
when I have piled them together to proceed further on the way. 

I may, however, append the names of Sheriffs of Elintshire of our 
family from the reign of Henry the Eighth to that of William and Mary, 
which I have found in an old catalogue of the Sheriffs. I do not know 
why they should begin with King Henry the Eighth, for there were 
Sheriffs of Elintshire from the establishment of the county, in King 
Edward the Eirst’s time, but perhaps they were differently appointed. 

Erom the date of this list in— 


1543. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt. was 

3rd Sheriff. 

1554. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt. 

55 

14 th 

55 

1560. 

William Hanmer, Esq. 

*5 

20 th 

55 

1570. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt. 

55 

30th 

55 

1584. 

John Hanmer, Esq. 

55 

44th 

55 

1597. 

William Hanmer, Esq. 

7) 

57 th 

55 

1606. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt. 

55 

66 th 

55 

1610. 

Sir William Hanmer, Knt. 

55 

70th 

55 

1617. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer, Knt. 

55 

77 th 

55 

1622. 

Sir John Hanmer, Bart. 

5 5 

82nd 

55 

1648. 

Roger Hanmer, Esq. 

55 

108th 

55 

1692. 

W 7 illiam Hanmer, Esq., of Bettisfield 

55 

152nd 

55 

1694. 

Thomas Hanmer, Esq., of Fens 

55 

154 th 

55 


I am reminded, also, that I have very slightly alluded to Hammer 
church, the chief monument of our parish, and a centre for its inhabitants 
in life or death : one way or another they most of them come round it. But 

* The name occurs in the Lincolnshire survey in Domesday Book: Terra Waldini Briton, 
the land of Walden the Englishman ; it seems at the time to have been very considerable. The 
Waldens were afterwards located at Erith, when, temp. Henry VIII., an heiress married the 
4th Earl of Shrewsbury, and conveyed their estate to that family. 



























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HANMER CHURCHYARD. 















OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


99 


I ana not sufficiently acquainted with ecclesiastical architecture to descant 
on its peculiarities or its merits, and can only speak of it in general terms 
as a simple and graceful building of the Tudor reigns. It was not com¬ 
pleted till the last of them, for one of the upper stones of the tower bears 
the date of 1570, which was 12th-13tli of Elizabeth, and the chancel was 
not erected till after the time of Queen Anne.* I sometimes hear sarcastic 
observations about Queen Anne’s Gothic applied to this portion of the 
structure, but to me it seems a light and agreeable place, where the power 
of seeing the sun shine through the long windows is so far from detracting 
from, that on the contrary it very much adds to the true solemnity of the 
rites and services which are there celebrated.! I am, besides, too much 
obliged to the Speaker, who built it, ever to permit it to be changed. The 
dedication of the church was always to St. Chad, and we continued in the 
diocese of Sanctus Ceadda, or Lichfield, till the Reformation, when we 
were transferred to Chester, and in these days to St. Asaph ; but through 
all the changes St. Chad, who is a frequent patron of holy wells, has kept 
one for himself in a meadow close by, and though it has rather suffered* 
but without intention, at my hands, from drainage near the mill-pool, a 
large volume of water could easily be collected there again. We still 
warn the neighbourhood with the curfew, and up to the time of the Tithe 
Commutation Act the clerk was paid in corn for ringing it. Our Welsh 
churchyards, as we read of them occasionally, did not quite correspond 
with the ideas of Gray’s Elegy, nor with the grave and tranquil epitaphs, 
such as “Moult est etroite ma meson” of ancient times. There was the place, 
as is shown particularly by Lord Herbert of Clierbury, where neighbour 
planned draughts against his neighbour, and waylaid him in the path where 
he was like to come. However I do not remember any such story applicable 
to ourselves ; on the contrary, when the mere at Hanmer is bright and full, 
and the sun lights up the cottages, and the wind comes softly from the water, 


* It was built in 1720, in the succeeding reign. Before then there was a chancel of oak frame¬ 
work ; the materials were taken away by one Probert, Sir Thomas’s steward, who erected some 
cottages with them on his own account, which being neglected till many years afterwards, 
William Hanmer of Iscoyd purchased back again, in 1753 ; hence they went to the family of his 
daughter Mrs. Curzon, in whose time they were converted into the Royal Oak public-house. 
I had the satisfaction to become ultimately the owner, and to pull it down. 

t “ Dans ton ame tranquille, ou le jour vient d’en haut.”— Victor Hugo. 

L.oF C. . 2 d- 


100 


A MEMORIAL 


and as not unfrequently is the case the organ inside may be heard through 
the south door, a more peaceable and beautiful prospect than that which 
is thus presented cannot be beheld, and it is improved by a tall grey stone 
cross, which, to the credit of our forefathers, has outlasted the Puritan 
times. All the church is in good repair, and it has had several modern 
gifts presented to it. It was greatly purified, as Pisistratus purified Delos,* 
by removing the sepultures that were within it,—not altogether, for those 
who were engaged in the operation, like the Athenian, did not quite com¬ 
plete it: this was done about thirty years ago. The ceiling of the north 
aisle, repeated in a portion of the southern one, is, I suppose, the most 
artistic and learned member of the fabric. In its triangles and circles 
and pentalphas mysteries are involved; under those on the south side 
yet droop the funeral banners of this house; but some have fallen to pieces, 
poles and all. In the chancel is the cenotaph of Chief Justice Lord 
Kenyon, who is buried outside near the tower, and there are a few other 
monuments. The bells, six in number, have the advantage oT the 
neighbourhood of the mere, and they make good music over it; but they 
are not, so far as I am a judge, very remarkable in themselves ; they have 
not a name among them, and the inscriptions are common-place and dull. 

It is not interesting to know that “ T. ft. of Gloucester re-cast this 
bell,” nor to read a rhyme worthy of Sternhold and Hopkins on another, 
while ct Prosperity to this Parish,” though a formula capable of more 
refined applications, may at first suggest some incumbent of the last 
century rising at the head of the market-table, and proposing it as a 
toast, especially as we had a vicar much inclined to such sentiments so 
expressed, within the influence of the classic period of Parson Trulliber. 

One of the uses of a church bell is for the clerk presented to the 
living to ring himself in with it, which he does by way of taking pos¬ 
session, having first closed the doors. 

We obtained the right of presentation, which I have twice exercised, 
by the following grant, still bearing the Abbot of Haglimon or Haugh- 
mond’s seal in green wax attached to the parchment: 

“ Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit, Ricardus Abbas 
Ecclesie Sancti Johannis Evangeliste de Haglimon et Conventus ejusdem loci salutem in 


* Thucydides, lib iii. sect. 104. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


101 


Domino. Noveritis nos unanimi consensu et assensu dedisse concessisse et hoc presenti 
scripto nostri confmnasse Johanni de Hannemer armigero et heredibus suis nominationem 
Vicarie ecclesie parochialis de Hannemer in vacantiis. Ita quod predictus Johannes et 
heredes sui habeant nominationem predictam, absque inpedimento sive intrusione nostra 
seu successorum nostrorum inperpetuum. Et ad vicariam predictam toties quoties in 
futurum vacare contigeret nobis seu successoribus nostris presbyterum idoneum nominare 
debeant. Ita quod nos dictus Abbas et successores nostri virtute nominationis predicte 
presbyterum per dictum Johannem seu heredes suos sic quoquomodo nominatum Episcopo 
loci diocesis ad vicariam Ecclesie de Hannemer predicte presentare teneamus. In cujus 
rei testimonium tam sigillum mei dicti Abbatis quam sigillum commune ecclesie de 
Haghmon presentibus sunt appensa. Datum in domo nostro capitulari de Haghmon 
duodecimo die mensis Septembris Anno Domini millesimo quadricentesimo vicesimo 
quarto (1424) ac regni Regis Henrici Sexti post Conquestum tertio. Et nos Willielmus 
Dei gratia Coventrensis et Lich. episcopus ad specialem rogationem partium predictorum 
sigillum nostrum fecimus his apponere in fidem et testimonium premissorum. Datum in 
manerio nostro de Haywode xv t0 die dicti mensis Septembris, Anno Domini supradicto 
et nostre consecrationis quinto.” 

Appropriated seats in churches are often carped at; there is, however, 
before me proof that they are no innovations, hut rather matters of 
inheritance and conveyance, with cognisance of the Archdeacon, before the 
Reformation ; also that the laity sat in cancelld , which was not a Holy of 
Holies as some would make it now. 

“ Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit salutem. Sciatis 
me Edwardum ap David ap Edmund remisisse relaxasse et omnino pro me et heredibus 
meis in perpetuum quietum clamasse Domino Thome Hanmer militi, ac patrono "V icarie 
de Hanmer, heredibus et assignatis suis totum jus titulum meum et clameum que unquam 
habui habeo seu quibus modis in futurum habere potero in una formula sive sedile in 
cancella ecclesie parochialis de Hanmer predicte. Ita quod neque ego predictus 
Edwardus neque heredes mei neque aliquis alius pro nobis seu nomine nostro aliquod 
jus titulum vel clameum in predicta formula sive sedile de cetero exigere clamare seu 
vendicare potuimus nec debemus (words illegible). Et ego predictus Edwardus et 
heredes mei predictam formulam sive sedile prefato Domino Thome Hanmer heredibus 
et assignatis suis warrantabimus in perpetuum. In cujus rei testimonium his presentibus 
scripto meo relaxatorio sigillum meum apposui, et quia sigillum meum pluribus est 
incognitum sigillum Menerabilis dommi dommi Ricardi Hanmer, decani decanatus 
de Maelor Saesneg, his apponimus (word illegible). Et nos Dominus Ricardus Hanmer* 
decanus decanatus de Maelor Saesneg, ad speciale rogatus dicto Edwardo sigillum officii 

* I have seen somewhere the name of Richard Hanmer, in a list of the 4 ear s Pilgrims 
to the Holy places at Rome; possibly it was this churchman. 


102 


A MEMORIAL 


nostri his apposuimus, in fide et testimonium premissorum. Datum sexto die Aprilis 
anno regni Regis Henrici Octavi post conquestum Anglise sexto et anno Domini mil- 
lesimo quinquagesimo quartodecimo. 

Endorsed in ancient writing, “Ed. ap Dd. ap Edmond, for a forme in the chancel in 
Hanmer Church.” 


We possess the representative if not the real portraits of Sir Thomas 
Hanmer mentioned in this deed, and of Richard his father, in the two 
old pieces of stained glass, representing each of them kneeling, clothed in 
armorial surcoats, which were formerly in the window over the north door, 
and in the east window of the north aisle of the church, and which, before 
they were broken, had the relative inscriptions under each. A copy fortu¬ 
nately exists of them. 

“ Orate pro bono statu Domini Thome Hanmer militis et domine Matilde * uxoris 
sue, qui istam fenestram vitriari feceruntand 

“ Orate pro bono statu Ricardi Hanmer armigeri et pro bono statu Margarete uxoris 
sue, qui istam fenestram vitriari fecerunt.”f 

They appear, however, to have been both put up at the same date, 
26th Henry VIII. a.d. M.ccccc.xxxiv. 

David ap Edmund, father of Edward, the other party to the deed, 
ranks among the classic Welsh poets, and several of his compositions are 
extant. I have not seen them, and I believe they are not printed; but 
they are to be found among the valuable collection of Welsh MSS. 


* This was Matilda daughter of Sir Piers Newton, knight, second wife of Sir Thomas, whom 
he married 18th King Henry VIII., settling on the marriage (of which however there was no 
issue) his manor and lands of Hamptons Wood in Shropshire. 

t There were also, as I find by an old drawing of 1670, only recently shown to me, two more 
inscriptions, but without figures, 

“ Orate pro bono statu Johannis Hanmer.uxoris ei qui istam 

fenestram vitriari fecerunt, a.d. mcccccxxxv.” 

and another of the same date and tenor, but wanting in both the names. The dates of all the 
four are 2Gth and 27th Henry VIII. John therefore was John or Jenkin of the Fens, and his wife 
Margaret Dyrnock, and it may be noted that the North was always called the Fens Aisle before 
the township of Bronington was made a district. The other, from whose window Time has not only 
torn his household coat, but all fragments of his name, I cannot identify. John of Bettisfield, 
however, whose daughter and heiress Joan married Mr. Fowler of St. Thomas, was living at 
that period. 


OF THE PARISH OF IIANMER. 


103 


formerly at Hengwrt, and now, by bequest from Sir Robert Vaughan, 
belonging to my friend Mr. Wynne of Peniarth. I observe that he is 
among the verbal authorities quoted in the Welsh dictionary of the learned 
Dr. Richards. His house and land were by the mere-side at Hanmer; 
he is said by some to have been a member of the family, and the position of 
his property rather warrants this idea. There is a legend that being an 
owner of a portion of the water, all the rights in which were bought up by 
Richard Hanmer of Hanmer and his son Sir Thomas, he sold what 
belonged to him to the former, for a noble, but I am sorry I cannot trace 
him, as I could desire. 

Outside the wall of the south aisle, and nearly about its centre, there 
is an oblong stone tomb, with the hat of some ecclesiastic dignitary yet 
faintly visible upon it, and this tradition ascribes to the architect of the 
church, but his name has passed away. It is always good to pause before 
tradition; and, lest I should imitate those members of the House of Com¬ 
mons, who, having apparently finished their speeches, often begin again, 
but rarely to the satisfaction of their audience, I here effectually pause 
with the first portion of these gleanings of local antiquity, to collect which 
Avas first and frequently suggested to me by the late Bishop of St. Asaph. 
He Avas long our diocesan, and grew into one of our oldest friends, and he 
rarely came to Bettisfield Avitliout endeaA r ouring to persuade me to attempt 
something of the kind. Having done so I am grateful that in these 
days a seal of 1404, or at least the repetition from the Avax impression 
of the seal (which is opposite to that of Jacques de Bourbon, attached to 
Owen Glyndwr’s treaty in the Preneh Record Office at Paris), can be 
appended to them, and that it may be uoav, as it Avas then, 



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105 


PART II. 

Prom the beginning of the Eighteenth into the Nineteenth 

Century. 

“ In such green palaces the first kings reigned, 

Slept in their shades, and angels entertained, 

With such old counsellors they did advise, 

And by frequenting sacred groves grew wise.” 

Waller. 

All the best of our vision is in the future ; yet, like shadows, we turn 
either way, and often please ourselves with the past, when things to come 
should be before our eyes: so I continue these local notes and stories, 
gathering what I can find, before, like others that have been forgotten, 
they sink into the horizon below which nothing can be seen. 

Mr. Dineley, the chronicler of that progress of the Duke of Beaufort 
through Wales in 1684 to which I have before adverted, says of our 
parish that it contained no antiquities,* meaning, I suppose, no Norman 
castles to oppress the Welsh, nor any crusading knight upon a monu¬ 
ment ; only there were our arms, the lions passant gardant, about the 
Church; there must also have been old trees enough, which, perhaps 
because they were common, he did not attend to. He was neither a planter 
nor a poet; nevertheless the oaks which were growing then in park and 
hedgerow here have left their memory behind them, and I have heard that 
some years after Mr. Dineley’s visit they were what first caught the eye of 
the Duchess of Grafton, when she came to Bettisfield, upon her marriage 
with Sir Thomas Hanmer. But there were legends of their size and number 

* The neighbouring township of Iscoyd, in Malpas parish, but in our Flintshire hundred of 
Maelor, contains a sepulchral mound, near Whitewell Chapel, in which bones and red pottery of 
a very remote period have been found. Part of Malpas adjoining to Iscoyd, but on the Cheshire 
side of the Wich brook, was once the property of Sir William Brereton, and was forfeited by him 
in 1536 for his treason with Anne Boleyn. 


106 


A MEMORIAL 


of a much later date, for they lasted into this century, and even into my 
life, though I do not remember them; until in the course of the great 
French war they went the way of all timber, leaving us some younger ones 
for futurity, to which I may claim to have added my proportion, including 
the oak avenue towards Hanmer and the Mere, and we have yet some large 
trees too aged for the axe, whose hollow trunks and branches rear and shelter 
many generations of owls. “ Out sterte the owl with Benedicite ,” says 
Chaucer in his “ Court of Love,” hut a few years ago there was a lively 
battle between some bees and owls for possession of a tree, in which 
the bees came off the victors, and the owls, who were not the assailants, 
had to muffle up their feathers and come out like any Irish Churchmen. 
Honey was one of the accounted profits of woods in feudal times, but it is 
too rare in that position now to he contemplated, by name at least, in 
the new system of local taxation with which we are menaced, though it 
is proposed to extend it to game, and to woods themselves ; we should 
extract, therefore, if hitherto we have not, some annual revenue out 
of them. The lady of whom tradition tells that she was pleased with 
the sight of these antient trees was the daughter of Lord Arlington, 
King Charles the Second’s Minister, and widow of the son of that king, 
first called Lord Harry,* and afterwards Duke of Grafton. She had been 
married to him, probably for her inheritance, almost as a child. At her 
second marriage she was a woman of great beauty, as her picture by 
Lely in the library at Bettisfield shows. Swift however, who could not 
speak well of any one, except he expected to get something by it, cavils in 
one of his coarse vain letters at her personal appearance, as he saw her to¬ 
wards the end of Queen Anne’s reign, particularly alluding to a towering- 
headdress that she wore; and, as to that article of apparel, he may have 


* In King James the Second’s Memoirs, written by himself and printed by Macpherson, 
there is a note July 15th, 1672, “Buckingham proposed to the King if he would break off the 
marriage with Lord Harry and Arlington’s daughter, and so get Lady Piercy for Lord Harry ; 
but the King answered it was too late, the other being concluded ” In 1692 some one persuaded 
the Duchess, then a widow, to ask for a patent to coin two and three-penny pieces of “ coarse 
silver,” like Dutch stivers, which was refused; the lowering of the value of money by one- 
fourth since the reign of King Henry VIII., so that one shilling of his time was equal to four 
of King William’s, is mentioned in reply by the Secretary of the Treasury.— See Calendar 
of State Papers. 


107 


OF THE PARISH OF II AN ME R. 

been right enough, hut the great painter lias drawn her far otherwise. 
Euston belonged to her, and afterwards to her descendants the Eitzroy 
family; hut the late Lord Charles Eitzroy once told me that her second 
husband, my kinsman, whose birth at Bettisfiekl 24th Sept. 1677, I have 
mentioned already, and whom she married in 1698,* had a considerable 
life-rent out of it. The Suffolk neighbourhood of Mildenhall, which Sir 
Thomas inherited from his mother’s family of North, most likely brought 
about his first acquaintance with his wife ; but almost every year he appears 
to have passed some time at Bettisfiekl, where he was contented with a 
moderate house, but having large stables standing between the present 
parterre on the western side and the park, and, as I suppose, effectually 
blocking out all view of the Welsh hills, which form the chief charm of 
our scenery. These stables were pulled down about ninety years since, and 
the place has become open and picturesque. I understand from the 
Ordnance Surveyors, that the Bed Tower, which they have taken for one 
of their angles, can be seen from the westward at thirty miles distance. 

The old Welsh song, of which I printed a few lines in English, 
addressed in the reign of King Henry VIII. to our forefather of that day, 
says in another part, 

“ Thou art a knight having horses and men, 

And the honour of all the minstrels.” 

His descendant of Queen Anne’s time appears by more than one token to 
have indulged in a rather hereditary weakness for large trains of 
horses; f but it may be said that at each of these dates, and long after¬ 
wards, they were not unnecessary, if they are now, to those who had any 
leading in their counties. The papers published by Macpherson show how 
soon Sir Thomas renewed this position of his predecessors, and grew to 
be of importance among men whose inclination, one way or other, to 
the Stuarts or to the Hanover successors of the Crown established by 

* See Narcissus Luttrell’s Diary. 

f In Sir Henry Bunbury’s book (“ Correspondence of Sir Thomas Hanmer, and other relics 
of a gentleman’s family ”) there are two letters from the Due de Lausun, the same who carried 
away Queen Mary of Modena and her son from Whitehall in 1G88, thanking Sir Thomas in May 
and June 1716 for the gift of a grey horse. Prior also begs of him, some years earlier, 1709, to 
buy him a horse at Wrexham fair. 


108 


A MEMORIAL 


the then recent Act of Parliament,* was jealously watched from day to 
day, and under all political contingencies. One of the first votes however 
of which I find any notice that he gave as a Member of the House of 
Commons, was in 1704,f in favour of tacking the Bill against occasional con¬ 
formity to a Money Bill, so as to ensure its passage through the House of 
Lords, and this indicated the determination, to which he held through life, 
of maintaining the Church of England, for what it was then considered, 
a bulwark of public liberty, wholly out of measure, as his maturer 
judgment affirmed, with the restoration of a family more papal than the 
Pope, and much resembling our contemporaries the Neapolitan Bourbons. 
Yet he was one of the statesmen who for a moment held that restora¬ 
tion in their hands, and he went to Paris in 1712, not like his grandfather 
in 1644, an exile of civil war, with a little money and a weary foot, but 
privately entrusted by the Queen, and by a large body of Parliamentary 
and country gentlemen, to form some reliable opinion of her brother’s real 
intentions and views. This was the simple cause of the extraordinary 
honours shown him by command of King Louis XIY., which seem to 
have excited the spleen of the morose, though in his memoirs very enter¬ 
taining, Hue de St. Simon. Before then he had been with the Duke of 
Ormond in the Netherlands, and carried to him some verbal instructions, 
the result of which was, perhaps, what obtained for her Majesty the repu¬ 
tation attributed to her by St. Simon, of being a sincere friend of his master 
the Prench King. The Duke, however, less prudent than Sir Thomas, 
or thinking himself warranted by Lord Bolingbroke, as he was, did 
not know how to keep within safe bounds, and a communication which 
he made to Mareclial Villars at this time was one of the grounds of 
impeachment against him in the next reign. No acceptable forecast 

* The Act of Settlement was passed 12th June, 1701. When George I. succeeded to the 
Throne under it, there were fifty-seven persons nearer in blood than himself, descendants of 
James I. and Charles I., but all were Roman Catholics, as the Hanover family had very nearly 
been. 

j- At that time Sir Thomas was member for Flintshire ; he had been returned in those days 
of short Parliaments once before, for Thetford; afterwards as long as he was in the House of 
Commons, and while Speaker, he represented Suffolk ; hut in 1710 he was also elected at Thetford. 
A correct list of the House of Commons in successive Parliaments would be a desirable acquisition 
to public as well as local history. Browne Willis’s Notitia Parliamentaria only goes down to 
1660, and is imperfect, though a very meritorious work. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


109 


could be made about the Pretender, who like his son was fitter for a 
novel than for real affairs; and, when Sir Thomas returned home he 
declared openly and finally in favour of the Hanover succession, and to 
enforce his determination did not scruple to oppose the articles of com¬ 
merce with France in the Treaty of Utrecht, with which he had been 
at first, and on the other hand, very much concerned. For this he and his 
friends were called by Bolingbroke, the Whimsical party, but I believe his 
views on the succession were no other than those of his Sovereign Queen 
Anne, who knew in him the loyalty of a descendant of Cavaliers, and the 
sense of a practical gentleman. The Queen naturally leant towards her 
own family, and had about the same regard for the Elector of Hanover 
that people usually entertain for those who are to come after them without 
their will; but she and her sister Queen Mary appear to have been the 
wisest of all the Stuarts,* and to have thoroughly understood the conditions 
on which alone any of their ill-fated House could carry on its reign. Many 
of the papers printed by Macplierson bear upon Sir Thomas’s concern in 
these matters, but as this is a domestic and not a political history, I shall 
not repeat them, making only the following extract, which it must be 
owned, in the latter part, gives a curious account of the Speaker engaged 
in Parliamentary management, which we should think so improper, while 
the Queen herself, and every statesman with his following, cast their 
thoughts towards an uncertain future in her declining days. 

Macpherson, Stuart Papers, vol. ii., p. 420. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer was sent over in 1712 to the Duke of Ormond (whose relation f 
and friend he was), in Flanders ,\ and after that came to Paris, where he was received, 
by the King of France’s orders, like a prince; never had a private man such honours paid 
to him. There he put the last hand to the treaty of commerce; which very treaty he 
afterwards, when Speaker, used his interest to throw out. 

When that treaty was to come before the Flouse, and several debates had been held 
on it, just as the last debate for the final determination of the affair came on, the Earl of 

* “ Clarendon had law and sense ” said Dryden, or as Sir Walter Scott thinks Lord Dorset, 
and perhaps it was from his line of their pedigree that these Royal ladies derived their com¬ 
parative advantages. 

•j- The Duke of Ormond was cousin to the Duchess of Grafton on the mother’s side. 

j See also Boyer’s History of Queen Anne for the character of the Queen’s Minister, which 
without ostensible credentials was attributed to Sir Thomas, while engaged in this affair. 


110 


A MEMORIAL 


Oxford wrote a letter (as L. L. told me April 23rd, 1724) to Mr. Bromley, telling him 
. that he would by no means be an occasion of a breach among friends, that he would 
willingly let all the blame lie upon himself, and the treaty be given up rather than make 
a division. Nor would there have been a division in the House that day had not Sir 
Richard Yyvyan got up and said that he had studied the point of commerce. That he 
found the treaty admirably adapted for the advantage of England, and that he had 
grounded his motion on the best informations, and that he could not bear to see a matter 
given up out of compliment to anybody’s notions when his country was to receive 
a prejudice by it; and he laid the foundation of a debate which lasted till two in the 
morning, being carried on purely on a country foot, and the treaty rejected by only about 
eight votes. Lord L. dined that day with Lord Oxford, who was surprised to hear that 
the House was sitting at nine o’clock, and could not imagine how it happened, nor did 
then take a step to carry the point; whereas, as Lord L. told me, had he but sent a note 
to his brother Ned or cousin Tom Harley, the Court interest, which was neuter, would 
have fallen in with the country, and the treaty would certainly have been ratified. So 
that this point was left, to the infinite prejudice of England, out of a compliment of the 
Earl of Oxford to Sir Thomas Hanmer. 

St. Simon, whose attention w r as easily drawn to ceremonies and 
honours, especially to such as were paid to a gentleman not a duke, hut 
who knew little of the King’s mind at any time and less about such 
things as related to St. Germain, speaks thus of Sir Thomas’s Trench 
reception: 

St. Simon, vol. x. p. 376. 

II parut a la cour un personnage singulier, qui y fut re<;u avec des empressemens et des 
distinctions surprenantes. Le roi l’en combla, les ministres s’y surpasserent, tout ce qui 
etait de plus marque a la cour se piqua de le festoyer. C’etait un Anglais d’un peu plus de 
trente ans de bonne mine et parfaitement bien fait, qui s’ appelait le Chevalier Hanmer et 
qui etait fort riche. II avait epouse aussi la fille unique et heritiere de milord Arlington 
secretaire d’etat, veuve du due de Grafton, qui s’en etait eprise et qui conserva de droit son 
nom et son rang de duchesse de Grafton, comme il se pratique toujours en Angle terre en 
faveur des duchesses marquises et comtesses, qui etant veuves se remarierent inegalement.* 
Hanmer passa pour avoir beaucoup d’esprit, et de credit dans la chambre des communes 
II etait fort attache au gouvernement d’alors, et fait bien avec la reine, qui l’avait tenu 

* According to English law this is not the fact, and Sir Thomas never used any arms of his 
wife excepting those of her father, with her coronet of Countess in her own right. It is curious 
that St. Simon should have been wrong on a point so considerable to his mind. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


Ill 


toute la campagne aupres du due d’Orraond pour etre un peu son conseil. De Flandre il 
vint ici, il y demeura un mois ou six semaines, egalement couru et recherche, et s’en alia 
d’ici en Angleterre pour l’ouverture du Parlement. Je n’ai point su alors ce qu’il etait 
venu faire, ni meme s’il etait charge de quelque chose, comme l’accueil qu’il y regut porte 
a le croire, et j’ai oublie a m’informer depuis. On n’en a guere oui parler dans la suite. Il 
faut qu’il n’ait ni figure ni fortune sous ce regne en Angleterre, et qu’il ne se soit pas 
accroche au suivant. 

To disappear from the observation of this Palace-haunting duke, 
son of a courtier of Louis XIII., was doubtless, in his opinion, equiva¬ 
lent to the oscura selva :* but we, who in our own time have seen so 
many retired sovereigns, are not incapable of estimating the small amount 
of interest they excite in the country they have withdrawn to,+ nor 
can the gentlemen who are occasionally involved in their transactions 
expect to be remembered more than the principal personages on whose 
behalf they may appear. It was the passing but stately welcome given to Sir 
Thomas, and not the business which caused it, that, for the time it lasted, 
was considerable to St. Simon, and placed my kinsman in the long gallery 
of portraits he has drawn. Had the latter been conversant with English 
affairs he would have seen the Parisian guest of a few weeks in a solid 
position in his own country; as for figure, he had enough; and as for 
fortune, what he inherited from his ancestors so entirely contented him, 
that, besides political offices, he refused the rich place of Teller of the 
Exchequer, out of which many ministerial fortunes have been made. I 
do not know that I should have paused over this passage of a writer 
whose lucubrations often amuse me so much as St. Simon’s do, if it had not 
been raked up with a little bit out of Swift | and another out of Horace 
Walpole, in derogation of Sir Thomas, as one among the many who do nothing 


* Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita, 

Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, 

Che la diritta via era smarrita. 

Inferno, Canto I. 

f Now and then there may be some feeling akin to Turner’s picture of the Breaking-up of 
the Temeraire. 

\ Swift had some grudge against Sir Thomas arising from I know not what. Pope writes 
to Arbuthnot, July 4th, 1714, that he amused himself with a burning-glass, which he applied in 

2 G 


112 


A MEMORIAL 


answerable to their beginning, in a late number of the Edinburgh Review. 
Sir Thomas appears to have desired to go on into Italy after this business, 
but Lord Bolingbroke mentions in a letter to the Duke of Shrewsbury 
January 25th, o.s. 1712, that he had written to him by the Queen’s order, 
that she hoped she should have his assistance in the ensuing Session of 
Parliament, “which certainly (says that unfortunate statesman) will be a 
“ very nice and difficult one to manage, and upon the proceedings of which, 
“ our all, I think, is staked. I mention this matter because Sir Thomas may 
“ probably communicate to your Grace what he dehates in his mind, and you 
“ would be glad to know what the Queen’s sense was.” When the Parlia¬ 
ment did open, Sir Thomas appeared in his place accordingly, postponing 
the accomplishment of the wish to visit Italy, which we all feel in our 
day, so that a Quaker member of the House of Commons once told me he 
hoped to bathe his feet in the Mediterranean before he died; and, the con¬ 
clusions he had formed upon his Parisian mission becoming known, the 
friends of the Hanoverian succession offered to support him if he would be 
proposed for Speaker. This was acceptable to the Tory Ministry, who 
did not wish to break with one whom they hoped to recover as a friend. 
Accordingly, when the new Parliament met in Eebruary, he was proposed 
by Sir Arthur Kaye, member for Yorkshire, and seconded by Lord 
Scudamore, member for the county of Hereford, and chosen Speaker with¬ 
out opposition,* being the fourth which the district that can be seen from 
the top of the tower at Bettisfield had furnished within a few years ; these 
w r ere Charlton, Williams, Trevor, and himself. Lord Scudamore, who 
seconded him, belonged to a family now extinct, but which I believe 
claimed descent from a grand-daughter of Sir David Hanmer the judge, 
one of the daughters of Owen Glyndwr.f The House of Commons usually 
met at nine o’clock a.m. in those days, and had the advantage of morning 


various degrees to the printed papers of the House of Commons : the name, Pope says, of Thomas 
Hanmer, Speaker, was much singed; there were also several burns on the Proclamation against 
the Pretender. 

* Steele, who was then a member of the House, very nearly raised some, by injudicious 
allusions to the French trade question. 

f Owen Glvndwr died on St. Matthew the Apostle’s day, Sept. 21, a.d. 1415.—From 
Hengwrt, now Peniarth, MSS. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


113 


sittings : * gentlemen could thus enjoy at home the green leaves and sweet 
winds of summer, for which we must go to Richmond or to Windsor, and 
did not discharge their duty any less; indeed the debate on French 
commerce, which lasted, according to the note in Macpherson, till 
two o’clock the next morning, may be compared in length and 
earnestness to some of our own time. The fine full-length portrait of Sir 
Thomas in his robes as Speaker, which is in the library at Bettisfield, 
was painted by Kneller at this period; it represents a sensible and good- 
natured man, worthy of the respect which eighty years after his death, as 
I can bear witness, had not passed out of local tradition and remembrance; 
nevertheless the chances of time are such, that fewer personal marks of 
him remain here than of his grandfather, who was born in the reign of 
King James I., and died in that of King Charles II. I have scarcely 
half-a-dozen letters of his. One is from the Duke of Saxe Gotha, an 
ancestor of H. ft. H. the late Prince Consort, about the payment of 
some troops which the Duke appears to have furnished to the forces of 
Queen Anne.f 

A Monsieur Monsieur Le Chevalier Thomas Hanmer, Orateur de la Chambre des 
Communes du Parliament de la Grande Bretagne. 

Monsieur,—Dans le mesme temps qu’il a plu h Sa Majeste la Reine de la Grande 
Bretagne, apres la Paix faite avec la France, de remettre mes deux Regiments engages a 
son service a ma fibre disposition, Messieurs ses Plenipotentiaries m’ont fait asseurer que 
Sa Majeste n’oublieroit pas de fair tenir entiere satisfaction aux dits Regiments de tous 
les arrerages d’ordinaires et d’extraordinaires sur le fondement de la Convention mutuelle: 
je presume, Monsieur, que la Session du Parliament prochain pourra seconder l’effet. C’est 
dans cette veue que j’ay charge mon Conseiller et Resident a la Haye, le Sieur Hallangieur, 
de se rendre a Londres pour sollicker cette satisfaction, et de s’addresser a vous, Monsieur, 

* When King George III. at his accession wanted to make a favourable impression on Speaker 
Onslow, he said it should not be his fault if the House did not go about its business earlier in 
the morning than it had lately done, which Horace Walpole says “was a flattering speech to an 
old man attached to old forms ; ” but the partial revival of morning sittings in our time has been 
very useful. 

| All pay of foreign troops in the Queen’s service in the Low Countries was stopped by her 
order, through Secretary St.John, 21st June, 1712 ; this was on account of some difficulty they 
made in obeying the commands of the Duke of Ormond.—See Bolingbroke Correspondence, vol. ii. 
pp. 395-406. 


114 


A MEMORIAL 


suivant l’assurance et l’approbation generale qu’il m’a temoignee, avec un eloge tres par¬ 
ticular du zele que vous avez pour la justice et l’equite. 

Etant done persuade, Monsieur, que votre assistance comme d’un membre le plus 
considerable de Parlenient, revetu de l'employ honorable de l’orateur, pourra beaucoup 
faciliter ces instances, je vous prie d’avoir la bonte de me l’accorder dans une demande qui 
est fonde sur la promesse Royale. J’en auray une obligation bien forte, et suis, 

Monsieur, 

Votre tres affectionne Serviteur, 

Frederic Due de Saxe. 

Fridenstein, le 15th du Mars, 1714. 


This Parliament, the last of Queen Anne and of the Stuarts, was 
prorogued on the 9tli July, 1714, to Tuesday the 10th of August, and the 
Speaker came afterwards to Bettisfield. The air of Wales was perhaps better 
at the moment, and less charged with Metropolitan rumours than that of 
Suffolk would have been. What was then called a flying post might have 
reached Mildenliall near Newmarket in half a day ; the tranquillity of a 
place not to be arrived at in less than four such journeys was to Sir Thomas, 
who had done all he could to secure the Hanover succession, but some of 
whose intimate friends were deeply committed to the contrary, an obvious 
defence against the restless time. Meanwhile the Queen’s health, as was ex¬ 
pected, grew worse; she was worn out by the intrigues* that were about her 
among ministers and courtiers, some of whom were refugees in France, and 
some prisoners in the Tower before another year was over; and at last, 
on Sunday the 1st of August, early in the morning, she died. A few 
hours later Sir Thomas received in Hanmer church a message Secretary 
Bromleyf had despatched to him two days before, desiring his immediate 
return to London in contemplation of this event. Near the beginning of 
this century, there were, as I have heard, some old villagers still living who 
had seen this with quick children’s eyes, and were wont to tell it among 
other stories of the Speaker, how he suddenly left the church attended 
by the messenger, and how the news spread along the lanes and horne- 

* Some of these related to bringing over the Elector of Hanover in the Queen’s life, a propo¬ 
sition which was hateful to Queen Anne. Sir Thomas thought it should be deferred, though he 
had pressed it at one time. See Macpherson’s Papers. 

t Mr. Bromley stated as soon as the House met that a flying post was sent into Wales after 
the Speaker. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


115 


steads of our parish that Sir Thomas was sent for, and the Queen was 
dead. At York races, where, on Triday the 30th, her Majesty’s hay horse 
Star, running in her own name, had won a race of four four-mile heats, 
beating seven others, they heard of the Queen’s decease on Monday during 
the running, and King George I. was immediately proclaimed by Arch¬ 
bishop Dawes, who was one of the Speaker’s personal friends. I have 
somewhere mislaid a letter from this archbishop, written after a visit to 
Bettisfield; but I gather the fact of his immediately proclaiming King 
George, which was far from an indifferent act at that period, from the 
pages of that amusing compilation the Racing Calendar. 

Sir Thomas arrived in London, in time to take the chair, on Wed¬ 
nesday, 4th August, up to which day, from Sunday the 1st, the House had 
daily met in his absence, and adjourned. The original of the following 
letter from the Duke of Shrewsbury, Lord Treasurer, which was printed 
by the late Sir Henry Bunbury in 1838, with other correspondence he had 
collected, or which belonged to him, is in my possession :— 

St. James's, 4th July, 1714. 

Sir,— I have this morning spoke with several of the Lords Justices, and they are all of 
opinion the Session should be opened with a speech, which they intend to make to-morrow. 
1 am therefore directed to acquaint you that it would be agreeable to them if the House 
of Commons after taking the oaths did adjourn themselves till to-morrow morning. 

I am, Sir, 

Your most faithful humble servant, 

Shrewsbury. 

Endorsed by Sir Thomas, correcting the mistaken date, August 4tli, 1714. 

The Parliament sat till 22nd October, and then was finally prorogued. 
In the beginning of winter of the same year, in contemplation of the 
impending dissolution, Sir Thomas wrote thus, to his cousin William 
Hanmer of the Eens, about one of those arrangements which are not 
always very agreeable to electors, even when best intended :— 


Euston, Nov. 13, 1714. 

Dear Cousin,—The unfortunate necessity which hurried me away from Bettisfield so 
suddainly, prevented me from speaking to you upon many tilings which I desired to have 
done. And now the near approach of elections calls upon me to inform you with what 


116 


A MEMORIAL 


has passed on that subject with relation to the county of Flint, that you may not be a 
stranger to it. Before the time of choosing the present Parliament, it was considered that 
the last agreement of the county was expired, and therefore if possible to lay the foundation 
of another. Lord Bulkeley, Sir John Conway, Sir Koger Mostyn, and myself, acting 
also for you as you have heretofore entrusted me, took an opportunity at London of 
talking together concerning it. The intention was to preserve peace and good neighbour¬ 
hood among us, and the terms which were then proposed and consented to by all then 
present were these—that all parts of the former agreement* should be renewed and stand 
good, with this alteration and addition only, that whenever within the new term, which 
was to be the same with the former, it should be Sir John Conway’s turn to serve, either 
for, the county or the borough, it might be in his choice to doe it himself, or name another 
gentleman belonging to the county, and agreeable to the rest of the gentlemen of it. This 
proposition had the consent of all us who were then present, if the other gentlemen who 
were not there and if the countrey had no objection to it, when it should be made to 
them ; and I thought we were obliging you by endeavouring to establish quiet and a 
good correspondence in the countrey, for I have always heard you express it as your 
earnest desire that occasions of difference might be prevented. Whatever has passed since 
in the countrey you are likely to know better than I, and, as I imagine there will now be 
another meeting amongst you before the election, 1 hope no occasion will be given of 
breaking the good intelligence which is always wished by, 

Dear Cousin, 

Your most affectionate humble servant, 

Tho. Hanmee. 


Marks of the new King’s favour in other ways, but not again the 
chair he had occupied, awaited the late Speaker, who was succeeded by 
a member of the Whig party. Whatever was proposed to him, Lady Mary 
Wortley says, in one of her letters, he was “ weak enough ” to decline, 
but I do not know that a man is weak who is content with what he lias.t 
I have also heard that the treatment the Duke of Ormond met with from 
that Government was a chief cause of his break with them. He con¬ 
tinued afterwards for many years as one of the representatives of Suffolk, a 


* I have no note of what this former agreement was: in the reign of King William III. our 
family had been hit very hardly by elections. 

| The Countess of Arlington took her place as peeress in her own right at King George’s 
coronation, but Sir Thomas's relations with the Court of the former Elector of Hanover were 
limited by that ceremony. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


117 


principal independent member of the House of Commons.* * * § In this capacity 
he moved, 10th June, 1715,f to postpone the consideration of Mr. Walpole’s 
Report on the negotiations for the late Peace; the result of which was the 
impeachment of Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, and a little later of the Duke 
of Ormond. It was long afterwards imputed as blame to Sir Thomas that he 
advised the Duke’s flight on this occasion ; $ but this was not well founded ; 
on the contrary, there is reason to believe that he advised him to re¬ 
monstrate with the King, and that it was Atterbury who gave him the evil 
counsel. The motion for postponement was beaten by 280 votes against 
160. Lord Hervey in his memoirs says Sir Thomas’s speeches had not the 
art of persuasion; very few have it, as we all know in these days. 

Sir Thomas never re-opened the house at Hanmer, which was shut up 
for forty-five years in his time, from the death of his uncle Sir John, in 
1701, § to his own in 1746, and for eight years more in that of his imme¬ 
diate successor, William Hanmer of the Pens, and of Iscoyd, who died in 
1754. At Bettisfield. he made some ordinary additions, not now very easy 
to distinguish, as they are incorporated in later work, and he planted, 
among other trees, the large ilex on the eastern side of the house, much 
loved of squirrels, who keep a winter store about its roots. The late Lord 
Kenyon told me that he gave the acorns of those which are growing at 
Gredington|| to his neighbour there. Between the two oaks on either side 

* There was a Parliamentary phrase in those times of being “ above the chair,” applied to 
gentlemen who had filled it, and still were Members of the House; Mr. Bromley was another at 
the same period. 

| Debates of the House of Commons, vol. vi. p. 25. A paper printed in Addison’s Works 
gives a different account. 

+ I find this in one of the now obscure pamphlets which grew out of the troubles of Mr. 
Thomas Hervey, some thirty years later. It is also asserted in Macpherson ; but my household 
tradition is more likely to be the truth. 

§ There appears to have been a sale of the contents. I have a bill and receipt, March 17th, 
1701-2, of “ The goodes that Sir Thomas Hanmer bought in Hanmer House.” Among the 
entries is, ‘‘ On the topp of the great stairs a large landskipp £3 10s.” This is now in the long 
passage at Bettisfield. There is also a Tacitus which I still have. 

|| Though we have reached the reign of Queen Anne, the system of occasional notes, which 
make the farrago of this book, enables me to go back all the way to King Edward I for the 
name of Adam de Cretyng, from whose residence, as I have said before, but I had lost the 
reference at the time, I believe the name of Gredington (Cretyngstown) arises; it is to be found 
in one of the Writs to our forefather Thomas de Macclesfield. Adam de Cretyng was killed in 


118 


A MEMORIAL 


tlie green road, at the bottom of the garden, he had a device called a 
woodcock glade. Woodcocks are often shot now about the same place, but 
then they were caught in nets, as they came in the twilight out of Bettisfield 
wood, or the low ground about Haulton moat, that way. In 1721 the fol¬ 
lowing memorandum marks the date of the chancel of Hanmer church :— 

Received, March 13th, of the Hon. Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart., by the hand of 
Mr. Pye, the sum of four pounds and four shillings for journies to the quarry, and for 
rubbing and cleansing the first wrought stone of Hanmer Chancel, I say received the said 
sum in full of all demands, by me John Broster. 

A little building was sufficient for that period, and Sir Thomas was no 
great builder; but in any of the neighbouring parishes there is of the 
same date, as far as I remember, nothing at all. In 1723 died the 

Gascony 22nd Edw. I. a.d. 1294; his son John was summoned to parliament as a Baron, 6th 
Edw. I. a.d. 1332-3, but not afterwards. 

Writ to Thomas de Macclesfield. See Rolls of Pari. vol. i. p. 279, a.d. 1308-9, 

2nd Edw. II. 

Edwardus Dei gratia Rex Angl’ etc. dilectis et fidelibus suis Nich’o de Audele et Thome de 
Afacclesfeld, salutem. Ex querela Roberti de Nevill et Ankarete uxoris ejus accessimus quod 
cum ipsa Ankareta et Will’ le Boteler, primus vir suus, per magnum tempus seisiti fuissent in 
dominico suo ut de feodo de quadam placea terre ad manerium suum de Dodington pertinente, 
quousque Adam de Cretyng nuper Ballivus Celebris memorie Alianorce quondam Regine Anglie con- 
sortis nostre de Overton propria voluntate sua et absque causa rationabili ipsos Will™ et Anka¬ 
reta m de dicta placea ejecit. Et idem Willielmus in prosequendo jus suum et prefate Ankarete 
super ejectione predicta in curia nostra diem clauserit extremum, per quod eadem Ankareta nondum 
est inde justiciam assecuta, volentes super premissis plenius certiorari, et prefatis Roberto et 
Ankarete quod justum fuerit fieri in hac parte, vobis mandamus quod per sacramentum pro- 
borum et legalium hominum tarn Anglicorum quam Walensium, partium illarum, per quos rei 
veritas melius sciri poterit diligenter inquiratis utrum predict! Willielmus et Ankareta aliquo tem¬ 
pore fuerunt seisiti de predicta placea tanquam pertinente ad manerium suum predictum, necne. 
Et si sic tunc qualiter et quomodo, et si per predictum Adam inde fuerunt ejecti, sicut predictum 
est, tunc quo modo et ex qua causa. Et si placea ilia ratione predict! manerii de Overton per 
ejectionem predictam in manu nostra existit, necne ; et quantum valeat p. ann. in omnibus exiti- 
bus. Et Inquisitionem inde distincte at aperte factum nobis sub sigillis vestris et sigillis 
eorum per quos factam fuerit sine dilatione mittatis—et hoc breve. Teste Meipso apud West- 
monasterium v. die Aprilis anno regni nostri vicesimo septimo. Per Peticionem de Consilio. 
Responsio. Adeant Cane, et habeant ibi consimile breve Justic’ Cestr’ et alicui alii quem Cane, 
voluerit assignare. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


119 


Duchess Isabella of Grafton, Countess of Arlington, whom he had married 
twenty-five years before, not leaving him any children; and in the next 
year liis cousin, William Hanraer of the Fens, with whom as with all his 
family he always kept up an intimate friendship and alliance, died at the 
age of fifty, and was buried at Hanmer. In conjunction with Thomas 
eldest son of this William, Sir Thomas made that settlement of his Flint¬ 
shire estates by which he became more particularly our benefactor, on 
the model of preceding family arrangements between the branches of 
Hanmer and the Fens. lie however married himself for the second 
time. The lady, who died before lie did, without children of the marriage, 
was Miss Elizabeth Folkes,* of Barton in Suffolk, which estate, thus 
derived from her, with the rest of his Suffolk property inherited or 
acquired, went to, and is still enjoyed by, the descendants of his elder 
sister, Susan, Lady Bunhury. The two following letters, written in 1732 
on the occasion of a visit into Carnarvonshire, to some relations of his 
second marriage while it existed, give a curious picture of the circum¬ 
stances of travelling in the last century. 

Sir Thomas Hanmer to Sir Roger Mostyn. 

Bettisfield, June 27th, 1732. 

Dear Sir,—I have received the favor of your letter, and most heartily wish you all 
good success in the affair you have under transaction, and all good consequences from it. 
My journey is now fixed, not so much from considerations of the tide as from other 
motives, so that it is not possible for me to defer it, though the going into a strange and 
difficult country without the help even of the language is no very agreeable thing ; how 
any circumstance in it will fall out I shall not know before hand; and one of my uncer¬ 
tainties is whether I shall carry my own coach-horses the whole journey, or whether 
Mrs. Folkes’s are to meet me at Conway. If I should be obliged to leave my own and 
should not find a convenience for them at Conway, I know of no expedient I can lay 
hold of but sending them to Gloddaeth, and I beg you will only send orders by youi 

* This lady’s name is on Sir Thomas’s monument, otherwise of her it might be better 
said, “ Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda et passa.” She had other property, of which she 
disposed as she desired. Her death was about 1740. Mr. Thomas Hervey, with whom she 
made about 1736 a rather notorious escapade, lived till 1775, two years alter the accession of 
Sir Walden, under Sir Thomas’s will and settlements, thus precluding any attempt to imitate 
the Banbury case. I find dates not unimportant things in family history; they tend to render 
imposture difficult, and often impossible. 

2 i 


120 


A MEMORIAL 


servant there, that if I should be driven to that necessity they may not be refused admit¬ 
tance into your stables. I propose being at Conway on the 10th or 11th of July, before 
which I hope your orders will have reached Gloddaeth. I suppose my return can’t be in 
less than ten or twelve daj's, when, if I can hear of you either in Caernarvonshire or 
Flintshire, I shall endeavour to wait upon you. The Bishop of Bangor was so kind as to 
dine with me on Friday last on his way home, and I have promised him to lye one night 
at his house in my way to Bodville. 

I am, dear Sir, 

Your most humble and obedient Servant, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

The Hon. Sir Roger Mostyn, Bart., a Member of Parliament, 
at his lodgings over against Montague House in Great 
Russell Street, London. 


Sir Thomas Hanmer to Sir Roger Mostyn. 

From Mr. Wynn’s, July 14th, 1732. 

Dear Sir,—I long in person to ask you ten thousand pardons for all the trouble I 
have given you, and all I am still likely to give you. I intended to have waited upon you 
at Gloddaeth about to-morrow seven night, but such extraordinary rains have fallen here 
as to keep us close prisoners by making the brooks impassable, and have forced us to live 
almost half the time allotted for our stay at Bodville;* I hope we shall be able to get 
thither tomorrow, but I despair of being allowed the liberty (to return) the next week. 
We will therefore so order our affairs as to get under the Penmaenf at the best time after 
the next full moon, which we are told will be on this day fortnight; but whether we can 
reach Gloddaeth that night, or must stay at Conway till the next day, I doe not know 
how to judge before the time. For God’s sake let not this uncertainty in our motions, 
occasioned by deluges, tides, rocks, and precipices, put you to any inconvenience, beyond 
at least what you have suffered already. If your affairs call you back to Mostyn stay 
not for us at Gloddaeth, but leave us only a bed there if we should be under the necessity 
of making use of it, and forgive the trouble of so many men and horses, which I could 
not forsee would have been so long. 

O 

I am, dear Sir, 

Your most humble and obedient Servant, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

For Sir Roger Mostyn, Bart, Gloddaeth near Conway. 

* I believe this place is in Anglesea, and now the property of my friend Mr. William Williams, 
brother of Sir Hugh of Bodelwyddan. 

f Penmaen Mawr, which the Irish mail now passes under in a few seconds on the Chester 
and Holyhead line. This wild mountain, the Penmaen itself, is now being girt with villas, and 
in part is much carried away to make roads of. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


121 


I have found several of Sir Thomas’s travelling hills in an old walnut 
bureau that belonged to him. At a time when we breakfast in London, 
and eat our luncheon in Flintshire, they are a record of byegone arrange¬ 
ments not unworthy of preservation. 

“ Bishopsthorpe,* May 20th, 1718. 


“ Received there of the Hon. Sir Thomas Hanmer twelve pounds ten shillings. 


Lichfield, 

May 25, Received more five pounds 

£17 15.” 



£ 

s. 

d. 

May 20. 

The smith at Bishopsthorpe 

0 

8 

2 


Four pound of powder .... 

0 

2 

0 


Faid at Ferry brig .... 

0 

7 

0 

May 22. 

Paid at Doncaster .... 

2 

7 

1 


at Worksop .... 

1 

10 

9 

•mJ 

23. 

at Nottingham .... 

2 

17 

2 


Given to bell-ringers at Nottingham 

0 

7 

0 


to the music there 

0 

5 

0 

24. 

Paid at Derby ..... 

3 

2 

0 


Given my Lord Berkshire’s groom 

0 

1 

0 

25. 

Paid at Lichfield .... 

3 

8 

8 

26. 

at Four Crosses .... 

2 

0 

6 


At Newport . . 

1 

11 

0 



18 

8 

1 


Received . 17 15 0 

due to me 0 13 1 

at Bettisfield. 


Charles Langrish. 

Bills from London to Bettisfield, April, 25th, 1730. 

jC iV. d% 


Tottenham Court turnpike . . . • • 0 13 

Highgate . . . . • • • 0 0 7| 

South Mimms . . . • • • 0 13 

St. Alban’s bills . . . • . • 1 17 10 

Dunstable turnpike . . . . • • 0 13 

Dunstable bills . . . • • > 3 7 6 

Whitehill turnpike . . . . . • 0 13 

Woburn turnpike . • . . • • 0 13 


* On return from a visit to the Archbishop. 










122 


A MEMORIAL 


£ s. d. 

Newport Pagnel bills . . . . . 117 3 

Another turnpike near Northampton . . . 0 19 

Northampton bills . . . . . . 3 4 8 

Musique . . . . . . . 0 5 0 

Rugby bills . . . . . . . 1 14 1 

Coventry turnpike . . . . . . 0 19 

Mereden bills . . . . . . 2 19 6 

At the Welsh Harpe for Hay . . . . 0 0 6 

Four Crosses bill . . . . . . 1 10 0 

Newport bills . . . . . • 2 15 9 

Ternhill, for hay, bread, and cheese . . . . 0 16 

For 13 servants’ drink: 

April 25 . . . • • . 0 19 6 

30 . . . . . . 0 19 6 

May 1.. 0196 

2 . . . . . . 0 19 6 

3, for eleven . . . . . 0 5 6 


24 9 2| 


Received Ignatius Courteij. 


£ s. d 

May 27, 1742. George Cooper’s Account of Expenses on the 

road to Bettisfield . . . . 33 14 8 

This is evidently from Mildenhall. 

Bills paid. 


At Cambridge, house bill and servants . . . 1119 

Table bill and servants . . . . .090 

At St. Neot’s ditto . . . . . 2 18 6 

At Crick ditto . . . . . 115 2 

At Dunchurch ditto . . . . . 2 19 6 

At Coventry ditto . . . . .19 9 

At Castle Bromwich ditto . . . . . 2 18 2 

At Four Crosses ditto . . . . . 1 13 1 

At Newport (Shropshire) ditto . . . . 2 19 0 

At Tern Hill ditto . . . • • 2 17 4 

Servants’ board-wages with the coach . . . 4 8 0 













OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


123 


£ s. d. 

Turnpikes and monies spent . . . . 0 7 0 

Servants’ board-wages in the waggon . . . 7 8 5 

33 14 8 

June 7th. Received the full contents of this bill by me George Cooper.* 


Out of many Inn bills, belonging to these and similar accounts, 
which appear to be for a gentleman travelling with his own coach-horses, 
and with grooms and saddle-horses attending him, I take the following 
bill of fare. I am sorry to say that in another, in the month of May, 
I find a charge “ to cooking the partridgesbut I have seen them myself 
served up in that month on the Continent. 


Red Lyon, Newport. 


Carp 

Knuckle of vele, bacon, greens 
Plum pudding 

Shoulder of mutton and pickles 

Two chickens 

Creafish 

Tart and cheese 
Breest vele 
Pork and green 
Plane pudding and suet 
Plum pudding baked . 
fTea .... 

Mutton broth for two tables . 
Sparrow grass 
Quarter lamm 
Eales 

Frute pudding 
Wine 
Grass milk 
Sugar 


Supper. 


* Sir Thomas left in his will a legacy of £100 to this George Cooper, 
f In an account-book of Lady Susan’s in 1692 I find the price of tea 


the lb. 


£ s. d. 

0 2 6 

0 3 6 

0 1 2 

0 2 6 

0 2 0 

0 2 0 

0 1 0 

0 3 0 

0 2 8 

0 1 0 

0 1 0 

0 1 0 

0 4 0 

0 1 0 

0 2 6 

0 1 4 

0 1 4 

0 8 6 

0 1 0 

0 2 0 

at that date was 20s. 









124 


A MEMORIAL 


Breakfast. 


Coffee 

Fire 

Bread and beer 
Lettuce 
Watch ale 


£ s. d. 
0 2 0 
0 2 0 
0 2 4 
0 0 4 
0 1 0 


2 118 


Received May 21, 

1740, 

The full amount of this bill by me, James Hill. 

Sir Thomas, when he no longer heard what Lord Bolinghroke calls 
“the hoarse voice of party” in the House of Commons, appears to have 
Become an habitual student of Shakespear, and he gradually prepared an 
edition of the plays of the great dramatist, of whom he said “ Nil ortum 
tale,” which was printed at Oxford, at the University press, in six quarto 
volumes. This involved him in some literary controversies, hut Dr. 
Johnson’s approval may be set against Pope’s depreciating jingle, and the 
work remains a fine specimen of typography, though as an edition it is 
almost necessarily surpassed by the accumulated learning of later ones. I 
frequently see it in the libraries of the country houses of his time. Horace 
Walpole pointed out an error, which has run the round of critics, in a line 
in “ Othello,” describing Michael Cassio, the Plorentine, as “a fellow 
almost damned in a fair j phyz” but the real reading, which has not been 
arrived at yet, “ is a fellow almost damned in a fair wise.” This is entirely 
conformable to the next lines and general design of his character. The 
original mistake arose out of the similarity of the long f to the letter f, 
which caused the word to be printed “wife,” as it is yet in all the 
editions, while Michael Cassio has no wife, but only a mistress, “ Bianca,” 
in the play. 

Passing on to the closing year of Sir Thomas’s life, I find a kind letter, 
addressed by him to my great-grandfather, Walden Hanmer, afterwards 
Sir Walden, who was his godson, and in time the third of his successors under 
the settlement. The fellow-traveller mentioned in it was his wife, Anne, 




OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


125 


daughter of Henry Vere Graham, Esq., of Holbrook in Suffolk.* Her elder 
sister, Eleanor, was married to Sir William Bunbury. 

Mildenhall, Oct. 24th, 1745. 

Dear Cousin,—I am much pleased to hear that you and your fellow traveller are 
lodged safe and well at Sympson, and the more because the first day of your journey 
proved so uncommonly bad ; yet how much more dangerous was the later end of it, three 
hours in the dark ; how could you possibly escape being hurt? You lay the fault upon 
the roads of Bedfordshire, but 1 am afraid you lay too long in the morning. The whole 
journey of your life I hope will be prosperous, not only free from dangers but from fears 
too. Sir William and my lady are just now setting out for Holbrook, and Mr. Northt 
goes away tomorrow; so that if I were not pretty well practised in the art of living alone 
my mind would be as dark and gloomy as the time of year. This comfort too 1 have, 
that, as the sun is to return, so you and my pretty cousine have promised to come ere long 
to cheer and enliven my days. I think myself well justified in giving her that title, for 
nature has made her pretty, and you have made her my cousine. To her, and to your 
mother and sister, 1 beg my humble service. I hope you will let me know how you steer 
all your future motions, that my wishes may goe along with you, and you know they 
must all be good which are directed towards you and your family from, 

Dear Cousin, 

Your affectionate humble Servant, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

To Walden Hanmer, Esq., at Sympson, near Fenny Stratford, 
in Buckinghamshire. 

In a letter to John fourth Duke of Bedford, dated March 1745, 
printed in the first volume of the Correspondence of that Duke, and 
relating to the great drainage undertakings which are among many 
claims to public respect and gratitude inherited and possessed by the 
Bussell family, Sir Thomas, who had already been drinking Bishop 
Berkeley’s tar-water, mentions his failing health and inability to take 
journeys of any length; and in a little more than a year afterwards, 
May 7th 1746, he closed his life at Mildenhall, when he was within a 
few months of the age of sixty-nine, and on the 19th he was buried at 
Hanmer. He had no son by either of his marriages, and with him expired 
the last of the descendants in the male line of his great-grandfather Sir 

* There is a good portrait of her here in crayons, by Cotes of Bath. 

•j- This was Montague North, editor of his cousin Roger North’s Examen, which he dedicated 
to Sir Thomas; it was printed in 1740. 


126 


A MEMORIAL 


John, who had been made a Baronet in 1620* by King James I.; and 
the line of Thomas Hamner of the Kens, and his wife Jane daughter of 
Sir Job Charlton of Ludford, by their two sons William and Job, and 
their sons, with Col. William Hanraer their half-cousin, were all that 
remained to carry on the representation of the family in his name and 
blood, according to the expression of his settlement. 

A letter from Sir Thomas to his cousin William of the Kens, written 
in 1712, when he was about to join the Duke of Ormond in the Nether¬ 
lands, which will be given in its place, shows that, failing children of his 
own, he intended to look to his relations there from a very early period. 
Though he says in his letter to my great-grandfather Sir Walden, that he 
was “ well practised in the art of living alone, ”f I do not believe he was at 

* July 11th of that year, next before Edward Osborne, Esq., of Iviveton, whose son was the 
minister Lord Danby, Duke of Leeds. 

| There is an imitation of the tenth satire of Alamanni on this subject, by Sir Thomas Wyatt, 
which has always pleased me very much :— 

“ This maketh me at home to hunt and hawk, 

And in foul weather at my book to sit, 

In frost and snow then with my bow to stalk.” 

&c., &c., &c., &c. 

Sir T. Wyatt to John Pains. 

Our Sir Thomas attended to his gardens and fish-ponds at Bettisfield as well as to his 
books, as the following memoranda in his handwriting bear witness :— 

“ On the east side of the house, against the parlour chimney, a fig-tree from Mostyn, called 
“ there the pink fig, from the colour of the inside, but the true name in Italy from whence it comes 
“ is Sancti Johannis Primaticcio ; the fruit is large, but apt to drop before it is ripe. 

“ Against the drawing-room chimney, a fig-tree from Mostyn called the Gentile in Italy, from 
“ whence it originally came ; the fruit is white and the most delicious of all figs ; ripe about 
“ the middle of September. 

“ On the south wall, in the lower garden, from the house to the door— 

“ Two apricot trees; a fig from Mostyn called the Verdine ; another fig expected from Mostyn 
“ of the Gentile kind ; a green-gage plum. On the same wall, from the door of the espalier of 
“ limes :— 

{ Two Halsey, 

Two Gros Minian, 

Two Montauban ; 

“ One white fig. 

<! Memorandum of Fish put into the lower pond in the Park. 

“ July 8th, 1736. Eleven brace of fine large carp, most of them near two feet long, and three 
u brace of fine tench.” 


OF TIIE PARISH OF HANMER. 


127 


all forgotten in tlie scenes which he had left;* there was a portrait of him at 
Stowe as an old man, painted for that great political house, long after he 
had ceased to he statesman or politician. As to portraits, I have one by Dahl 
the Swede, about his middle age; there is also an engraving from that hv 
Kneller in the Speaker’s robes, first given in Yorke’s “Loyal Tribes of 
Wales,” which, having obtained the plate, I have had struck off again, and 
inserted in these pages. Among his friends, I may mention Mr. Anstis 
the Garter King of Arms, who was member for St. Germain’s and for 
Launceston, and a gentleman, it is possible, of rather Jacobite proclivities, 
since he was included among the members inculpated by Secretary Stan¬ 
hope, and ordered to be detained in custody, Sept. 21st 1715. Sir William 
Wyndham and Sir John Pakington were others of the number. Anstis was 
an ancestor of my friend and connection the B,ev. Matthew Anstis. I possess 
in his handwriting, and endorsed by the Speaker as received from him, a 
copy of a Latin letter by Camden to John Ilanmer, his contemporary, about 
surnames; but, though the great antiquary was Master of Westminster at 
one time, his Latin is so cramped that it is neither pleasant to read nor to 
construe, and the easiest part of it, as well as the best, is a line of Tacitus 
at its conclusion. On a monument there is a certain convenience in Latin ; 
it puzzles speculative rogues who come into churches and registries for evil 
ends, like magpies into a cover; it veils the praises of partial relatives; 
and has a sort of formality which suits the record of lives long since 
separated from our own. This is the inscription on the monument of Sir 
Thomas, written by Dr. Friend, in his lifetime :— 


“ There were a few smaller carp and tench put in a few days before and two or three 
small pike. 

“ July 13tli. To these, sent six brace and a half of fine carp.” 

In Cullum’s History of Hawstead Sir Thomas Hanmer is mentioned as one of the last 
gentlemen in Suffolk who amused themselves with the game of bowls. 

* In 1768 the old Duke of Newcastle, congratulating Lord Rockingham on the minority, 
prophetic of future success, in favour of Sir George Savile’s Nullum tempus Bill, writes, “ It is the 
greatest day in the House of Commons that the minority ever had in my memory, except the 
famous one of Sir Thomas Hanmer, when the minority were 208, and the Protestant succession 
was in danger, under Queen Anne’s administration. That great minority saved the Pro¬ 
testant succession, as I am persuaded this will the properties of many of His Majesty s 
subjects," &c., &c .—Rockingham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 73. 

2 L 


128 


A MEMORIAL 


* Honorabilis admodum Thomas Hanmer Baronettus, 

Wilhelmi Hanmer armigeri e Peregrina Henrici North 
de Mildenhall in Com. SufFolciae Baronetti sorore et hasrede 

Filius, 

Johannis Hanmer de Hanmer Baronetti 
Hmres Patruelis, 

Antiquo Gentis suae et titulo et patrimonio successit. 

Duas Uxores sortitus est, 

Alteram Isabellam honore a patre derivato de 
Arlington Comitissam, 

Deinde celsissimi principis Ducis de Grafton viduam dotatam ; 

Alteram Elizabetham Thomae Folkes de Barton in 
Com. Suff. Armigeri 
Filiam et Haeredem. 

Inter humanitatis studia fcliciter enutritus, 
omnes liberalium artium disciplinas avide arripuit, 
quas morum suavitate haud leviter ornavit. 

Postquam excessit ex ephebis 
continuo inter populares suos fama eminens, 
et Comitatus sui legatus ad Parliamentum missus 
ad ardua Regni negotia per Annos prope triginta 
se accinxit; 

Cumque apud illos amplissimorum virorum ordines 
sole ret nihil tern ere effutire, 
sed probe perpensa diserte expromere 
Orator gravis et pressus 
non minus integritatis quam eloquentiae laude 
commendatus 

aeque omnium utcunque inter se aliisque dissidentium 
aures atque animos attraxit. 

Annoque demum mdccxiii regnante Anna 
Felicissimse florentissimaaque memorise Regina 
ad Prolocutoris cathedram 

* There is a paraphrase of this epitaph in English verse, too well known to be reprinted, and 
usually attributed to Dr. Johnson. Mr. Croker thinks it is by Hawkesworth. One not unlike it 
I have sometimes the pleasure of seeing in Stanford Church in Worcestershire ; it commemorates 
Mr. Winnington the minister, who died in the same month and year, May, 1746, and is by Sir 

Charles Hanbury Williams. The first two verses are less pompous and much better than ours_ 

“ Near his ancestral shades here buried lies, 

The grave, the gay, the witty and the wise.” 

&c. &c. &c. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


129 


communi Senatus universi voce designatus est, 

Quod Munus 

cum nullo tempore non di HT cile 
turn illo certe negotiis 

et variis et lubricis et implicatis difficillimum 
cum dignitate sustinuit. 

Honores alios et omnia quae sibi in lucrum cederent munera 

sedulo detractavit, 
ut Rei totus inserviret Public® 

Justi Rectique Tenax 
et fide in Patriam incorrupta notus. 

Ubi omnibus qua? virum civemque bonum decent officiis satisfecit, 
paulatim se de publicis Consiliis in otium recipiens, 
inter literarum amenitates, 
inter ante act® vitae baud insuaves recordationes, 
inter amicorum convictus et amplexus 
honorifice consenuit, 

et bonis omnibus quibus Charissimus vixit 
Desideratissimus obiit. 

By his will, 13tli February, 1741, Sir Thomas recites that on 11th 
of April, 1733, he had made a settlement of his estate at Hanmer and 
Bettisfield, and elsewhere in Flintshire, and confirms it, and everythin 
therein contained; he also leaves a legacy to Walden Hanmer, describin 
him as his godson, and he mentions his house in Grosvenor Street, London, 
part of the succession of his nephew Sir William Bunbury; he left all 
the pictures, books, plate, &c., &c., in his two houses of Hanmer and 
Bettisfield, and deer and cattle in the parks there, to go with those houses, 
and some matters in connection with this were the subjects of bill and 
answer in Chancery from 1758 to 1761, to which my grandfather Sir 
Thomas was party as a minor by his guardians, and the record is useful as 
evidence of the state of the family up to that period. 

William Hanmer of Fens, the first local contemporary of Sir Thomas 
in our family—for he died much sooner, and his eldest and second sons 
succeeded him in the same way—does not appear to have been baptized at 
Hanmer, as his brother Job was; but as he was buried there in 1724 at the 
age of fifty, which is inscribed upon his grave-stone in the chancel of the 
north aisle, he must have been born in 1674,* and was thus three years 

* Since writing this I have found the registry of his baptism in Ludford church that year. 


CTQ CTQ 


130 


A MEMORIAL 


older than the Speaker. He inherited the estate of Pens on the death of his 
father Thomas, in August 1701, and his marriage must have been shortly 
afterwards, for his settlement from himself, Esther his wife, and others, to 
Job Hanmer as trustee, is dated 20th January, 1701, the year beginning 
25th March, according to the computation of those times. Thomas the 
eldest of his six children by his wife Miss Esther Jennings of Gopsal in 
Leicestershire is entered in the Hanmer register as baptized November 14, 
born October 31st, 1702. There was in the seventeenth century a family 
named Jennings, small freeholders, on the northern side of our parish, and 
in Iscoyd, and some of them were tenants on the Eens estate; others 
appear to have migrated into the Midland counties; and there, in the iron- 
trade of Staffordshire and at Birmingham, they accumulated possessions 
and lands, becoming at last of so much importance that King William III., 
not long before his death, was pleased to be godfather to one of them. 
This was Mr. William Jennings of Gopsal,* who was born in 1701, and 
died at the end of the century in 1798, and who, as he was well known to 
my grandfather and father, gave them the power of saying that they had 
known a gentleman who had seen King William. It is to be feared that 
Mr. Jennings, though thus distinguished at the beginning of his existence, 
did not adhere to good Bevolution principles at all times in the progress of 
it, for I have seen at Gopsal some small busts of the Young Pretender, 
each representing, as I was told, an amount of money advanced to that 
unfortunate Prince, when in 1745 his troops were for a moment not far 
remote at Derby. The renderer of this homage to the poor Bevenant of 
our former kings was perhaps a man of a sensitive and imaginative tempera¬ 
ment, for he was a patron of Handel, whose portrait was in the house wiien 
I last saw it, and, though he was a Nonconformist, his plain domestic 
chapel was redolent of its wainscoting of cedar. William Hanmer had 
three sons and three daughters by this marriage, and by his daughter 
Susanna, and his grand-daughter Esther, only child of his second son 
William, he has very great and numerous descendants; but the male 

* I am not very well acquainted with the genealogy of the Jennings family, with which none 
of us, except the descendants of this William Hanmer, were concerned ; but I suppose Mr. William 
Jennings was cousin to Elizabeth, wife of William Hanmer of Iscoyd. A Jennings pedigree 
including a false pretence of descent from Humphry Hanmer, is at this moment exposed for sale 
in a window of a dealer in such things in London. I bought a copy, to the waste of my money, 
for one and sixpence. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


131 


line of liis generation finished with his own sons in 3 773, at the death of 
Humphrey, the last of them. In the parish hook, 12th May, 1703, is a 
memorandum mentioning both William and Sir Thomas, and referring to 
the bounds of Hanmer against the parish and lordship of Wem, which, as 
the second and last Lord Jeffreys, son of the unjust judge, died in that 
year, perhaps relates to an intended sale of the Shropshire manor for a 
time branded with his name. It appears to have been written on our 
side by Mr. Hilton the vicar :— 

“ Memorandum, May 12th, 1703, that Sir Thomas Hanmer, Baronet, 
William Hanmer, Esquire, Thomas Eowler, Esquire, Richard Hilton, 
clerk, with several others of the parish of Hanmer, did meete Mr. Chet- 
wood, steward of Wem, Mr. John Chambers of Wolverley, Mr. Newnes of 
Northwood, and several others of the parish and lordship of Wem,* upon 
the bounds of the mosse between Hanmer parish and Wem parish. And 
that the meares and bounds between both parishes on the said mosse be 
the causey next to Wem side, and a straight line between the end of the 
causey to two trees which are on Egerton’s corner, and a straight line from 
the other end of the causey towards Blackliurst ford. 

“ Witnesse, Richard Hilton.” 

These boundaries were afterwards settled in a better manner, under the 
Inclosure Act of 1775. Meanwhile their more obvious relations may have 
been to little except snipes and hares, but as a limit they divided England 
and Whiles, Elintshire and Shropshire, and all the jurisdictions, archbishop¬ 
rics, bishoprics, lordships, and judicatures appropriate to each on that spot, 
and on which side of it a man stood might have made a difference in a 
great many particulars. Such of course is the nature of all limits, and 
yet few things have been neglected more, especially in Welsh wilds and 
wastes, where necessity often springs up for recognising or establishing 
them. Mr. Eowler was of the Staffordshire family, and descended from 
the marriage of Joan Hanmer with Bryan Eowler of St. Thomas,f in the 
sixteenth century. He built the large brick house near the railway, the 

* Aldrich, dean of Ch. Ch., was rector of Wem; lie died 1710. See Luttrell’s Diary. 

| Locally pronounced St. Thomas; it is near Ingestre, and what is left of it now belongs to 
Lord Shrewsbury. A great part of Mr. Fowler’s house at Bettisfield was afterwards burnt down: 
it was repurchased, with several adjoining farms, by my grandfather and myself, from a 
Northamptonshire family (Fitzgerald) who had become the owners of it: 

2 M 


132 


A MEMORIAL 


remains of which make now the best farm tenement in Bettisfield. A 
room, said to have been a domestic chapel, is in the upper part of it. 

The ensuing letter in 1712, from Sir Thomas Hanmer to William 
Hanmer, was in contemplation of his voyage to Ostend and the plains 
of Flanders. People now go with less preparation to Mount Sinai and the 
Bed Sea ; but it is a pleasant record of the bond between the two branches 
of our family, which never were disunited; the stems of each were large 
and ancient, but they grew firmly on the same root. 

London, April 2, 1712. 

Dear Cousin,—As I have taken a resolution of going over into Flanders with the 
Duke of Ormond, so I am not certain when I may return, and therefore I leave this letter 
behind me to communicate to you some particulars, which, partly for my own satisfaction 
and partly for yours, I wish to discharge my mind of. 

In the first place give me leave to acquaint you, that I have ordered Pemberton in 
everything relating to my concerns, where any doubt or difficulty arises to him, that he 
should applye himself to you for your opinion and advice, and I hope you will be so kind 
as to think for me, and give him directions, what you think most proper for him to doe, 
and what is the best for my interest. But this is not the only trouble which it is possible 
may fall to your share, for I consider he is old and very infirm, and how soon or suddenly 
he may dye I can’t tell. That case therefore would be likely to be very inconvenient to 
me whilst I am at so great a distance unless it be some way provided against, and by way 
of precaution I must make it my request to you, that whenever that happens you’l please 
immediately to take possession of all his papers for me, as well as all the money you can 
find to answer what shall then be due to me, and that for the carrying on my business 
you’l think of some honest capable man in the neighbourhood to recommend to me, not 
entrusting however any of my papers in his hands till you have sent me word who it is 
you propose. I have sometimes thought of Ned Deaves, if you think him very honest, 
and likely to be desirous of such an employment; but all that I say upon this subject I beg 
you will keep very close to yourself until the circumstances shall happen. 

I should think myself very much to blame to cross the seas without settling my 
affairs to my own satisfaction and in the best manner I can for the advantage and quiet of 
those that come after me ; this therefore I have done by a will which I executed not long 
since, and, as you are not a little concerned in it, I think it fit you should know that I 
have executed two duplicates of it. Whereof I leave one in the hands of my Lord 
Hervey, the other in Sir Roger Mostyn’s. I am not fond of giving advice in anything, 
much less to any one, concerning the direction and disposal of their own family, but you 
must pardon me for recommending one thing to you, as what I wish, and would be very 
acceptable to me, and that is, that you would think of giving your eldest son some better 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


133 


education than at a private country school. His time of age now makes him capable of 
better instruction, and of strength enough to go farther from home to find it. Westminster 
School is now in great repute, and it is governed by Dr. Friend, who was my tutor, and has 
that regard to me that I can depend upon his care of your son as much as his mother could 
take of him. What I propose therefore is, that you would send him up to that school, and 
give him the advantages he may meet with there. I hope you’l find the difference of the 
expense not great enough to countervail the benefits your son* will receive and the satis¬ 
faction it will give to, 

Dear Cousen, 

Your most affectionate humble servant, 

Tho. Hanmer. 

I beg my humble service to your Lady. 


I have no letter from "William himself, hut one which has been given 
to me addressed to Sir Richard Grosvenor, about a hound. 

Fens, Oct. y e 6th, 1714. 

Dear Sir,—The beagle you lost never returned hither. I am sorry I cannot oblige 
you with a couple of beagles, haveing very few old ones that are stanch; the greatest part 
are young ones, and not so stanch as I usually have them. 

I have sent you a bitch called Duchess. 

Who am 

Your humble servant, 

William Hanmer. 

To the Hon. Sir Richard Grosvenor, Bart., at Eaton. 


All William Hanmer’s children were born by 1711, and had been 
baptized in the parish church, where, except the two daughters that were 
married, they also lie. He himself marks the place of their common 
sepulture by his long gravestone with the Jennings’ arms impaled with 
his own upon it. The lion of his crest has a slight difference from our 
ordinary bearing, which I have found was granted to distinguish the line of 
Tens in Queen Elizabeth’s time, by Cooke, Clarenceux herald: but it has 
not been used, so far as I know, by any other member of the family, and, 


* This was Thomas Hanmer, afterwards of Fens, married to Lady Catherine Perceval, and 
M.P. for Castle Rising. 



134 


A MEMORIAL 


if some one curious in such matters had not rubbed it up, it would have 
escaped mv own attention. The births of his children were near together, 
from 1702 to 1711, as we may read in the Register: 

Thomas, son of William Hanmer of the Fens, Esq., baptised November 14th, 1702. 

William, son of William Hanmer of the Fens, Esq., baptised May 11th, 1704. 

Mary, daughter of William Hanmer of the Fens, Esq., baptised May 7th, 1707. 

Humphrey, son of William Hanmer of the Fens, Esq., baptised May 5th, 1709. 

Felicia, daughter of William Hanmer of the Fens, Esq., baptised August 1st, 1710. 

Susanna, daughter of William Hanmer of the Fens, Esq., baptised December 4th, 1711. 

In 1724 Thomas, the eldest of the three sons, succeeded his father; 
hut for nine years he brought home no lady to the Tens. Then, in 1733, 
he married Lady Catherine Perceval, daughter of the first Lord Egmont, 
and the next year was elected Member for Castle Rising, in the second 
Parliament of King George II., which was not dissolved till 28th April, 
1741, being one of the only two that have ever been really septennial. He 
lived, however, scarcely through the half of it, for in the register it is 
written: “ Thomas Hanmer, Esq., of Pens, died in New Bond Street, 
London, and was buried in his chancel here 18th April, 1737.”* A new 
writ on his death was moved for on April 5th. He left no children, and 
his wife Lady Catherine survived him. She belonged in her widowhood to 
the Court of Erederic Prince of Wales, with which her brother, the second 
Lord Egmont, was much connected. Some French verses addressed to her 
and to Lady Ealconberg and Lady Middlesex by that personage remain, 
like dull pictures on a wall, of bad original quality and much faded. It was 
the year of the battle of Eontenoy, that was in 1745, and according to 
Lord Orford his Royal Highness, acting the part of Paris in a mask, 
addressed the three ladies, who it is to he hoped were properly attired, in 
the following manner :f 


* His will, of which his brother William is sole executor, is dated March 3rd, 1736; the 
only bequest it contains is of personalty to Lady Catherine. His lands went by the settlement 
of 1733. 

f Lord Orford says, these and similar verses were after the mode of the Regent Duke of 
Orleans. There was another fashion set by that Duke, mentioned somewhere in St. Simon which 
I myself remember, of the master of the house himself or one of his children making salads for 
dinner. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


135 


“ Venez mes cheres Deesses, 

“ Yenez calmer mon chagrin, 

“ Aidez mes belles Princesses 

“ A le noyer dans le vin, 

***** 

“ Quand le chagrin me devore, 

“ Vite a la table je me mets, 

“ Loin des objets que j’abhorre 
“ Avec joie j’y trouve la paix.” • 

&c. &c. &c. 

With these preliminary strains the rest of the lay of the illustrious 
minstrel may he passed over. 

I suppose it was to festivals of this description that the temple on 
Monkey Island in the Thames, near Bray, with its ceiling and frescoes, 
well known to Eton boys of my generation, was once dedicated. I wish 
we had some portrait of this Thomas Hanmer.* I have a Grotius given to 
him by the well-known Jacobite intriguer the Abbe Gaultier, who 
appears to have insinuated himself into the family for a while as a Erench 
tutor. 

Then nine years before the death of the Speaker, who lamented the 
loss of the elder brother, William (the second) came, under the settlement 
of 1733, into the inheritance of Tens, and, like his father, he went to Gopsal 
for a wife, and married his cousin on the mother’s side, Miss Elizabeth 
Jennings. This was in August 1737. On the 22nd of that month he 
thus announced his marriage, to Job Hanmer his uncle, a bencher of 
Lincoln’s Inn :— 

Honored Sir,—I am now to acquaint you of my own marriage with my Cousin of 
this House, which was accomplished last Wednesday ; having obtained my Uncle’s con¬ 
sent soon after I came into this country. The fortune he has given her at present is ten 
thousand pounds. Her good qualities, family, and fortune will I am sure recommend her 
to all due esteem and love from all my relations, and 1 may say without vanity that no 
one deserves them better. This I have long wished, but could not hope for till lately. 

* There may have been one, but if so it is lost. He must have had some taste for painting 
and drawing, for I have seen at Dresden, in the Royal Gallery, two or three pencil drawings by 
Guercino, which were marked as coming “ Epinacotheca Thomoe Hanmer Armigeri and for some 
reason which I forget, but possibly for some date, they seem to have belonged to him. 

2 N 


136 


A MEMORIAL 


I desire you will please to acquaint my aunt Cornwall and such of our relations as you 
converse and correspond with to whom I am not so well known. I hope this will find 
yourself and my aunt and cousins all in good health, to whom my bride and all relations 
here and at Cadeby join with me in compliments. 

And am, Honored Sir, 

Your duty full nephew, 

W. Han me n. 

Gopsal near Atherstone, by Coventry Bag. 

To Job Hanmer, Esq., at Simpson near Fenney 
Stratford in Bucks. 


William Hanmer is memorable among us for pulling down the ancient 
hall of Pens, for which however, I, who did the like at Hanmer, am 
scarcely entitled to find fault with him, nor do I know that I regret his 
declining to settle and build anew at Bettisfield, though I find in a letter 
of Mr. Chaloner, the steward, that it was greatly to the offence of Sir 
Thomas, who wished him to do so, and offered to give it up for that pur¬ 
pose. He would certainly have obliterated all its antiquity. The badness 
of the water at Pens Hall is said to have been the reason why he left it, 
and took up his abode in Iscoyd upon some land he bought, and thus out 
of settlement, where he built the house now belonging to Mr. Godsal, 
which overlooks one of the few remaining commons of this district. There 
was fine timber at Pens as well as elsewhere in our oak-bearing county, 
but the place was always liable as a residence to the objection of being 
nearly on the outside of the property, the dingle which parts Plintshire 
from Shropshire, and gives way to the Bedbrook, being but a little to the 
east of it. The commons also of our parish were not at that time inclosed, 
and, pleasant as the expanse of the Pens moss is now, particularly in 
autumn, skirted with good homesteads and fine fields and plantations, 
and purple with the heather bloom, I can just imagine that in the last 
century it may have worn an eerie look : there was neither clock nor 
bell-tower to give warning to a wayfarer in the dark as he approached 
the wastes of Bronington. Even in modern days Bronington was but a 
wild township, and there was a family that robbed the country, and 
lived among the young Scotch firs, where they hid their plunder on the 
moss borders. They had all the addition of “ Bed ” to their names, and I 
remember two of them; one, who would have been called Y”orwerth Goch in 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


137 


old time, but in ours Red Ned,* for a housebreaking done by a person who 
changed clothes with him, and not by himself, came unfortunately within 
the grasp of the law at Shrewsbury. The improvements which have 
changed the aspect of the land for us were, I believe, begun by this last 
M illiam Hanmer. I doubt if any local maps existed before his time, but 
he left a fine survey of the Eens estate, made in 1740 by John Grundy, of 
Spalding in Lincolnshire. Inheriting Hanmer and Bettisfield so shortly 
afterwards in 1746 from his kinsman Sir Thomas, it seems strange that he 
did not continue it, if indeed he did not, over that portion of the property; 
but many maps were destroyed by an unjust steward we had about 1830. 
In the time of this William there was a glass-work near the Eens, on a 
place marked as The Glass Eield in the map of 1744, and it is still strewed 
with brown vitreous fragments. A farmer said to me this spring he had 
ploughed under and harrowed and carted away many loads of them. This, 
perhaps, was an undertaking suggested to the owners of Eens by the 
commercial genius of their connections the Jennings’ family ; and, though 
it does not seem to have succeeded, it deserves remembrance as an attempt 
to utilise materials to be found upon the spot. Sand there is in plenty fit 
for coarse glass, but the failure must have been due to the want of tenacity 
of peat, which cannot stand a blast as fuel. 

. After May 1746, when Bettisfield came to William Hanmer, his 
mother and his sisters in a short time removed there. This is evident by 
the marriage registry of the second of them—“January 22nd, 1747. 
The Reverend Staunton Degge, Esq., of Almondbury, in the county of 
Glocester, and Mrs. Eelicia Hanmer, of Bettisfield, were married by 
licence.” We may sometimes hear a clergyman of landed property desig¬ 
nated as a “ black squire,” but I do not call to mind any other instance of 
the two descriptions being coupled in a legal or perhaps rather lawful 
document. Eurther on, the eldest sister, “ Mrs. Mary Hanmer, of Bettis¬ 
field,” is entered as “ buried October 2nd, 1754;” and later still their mother 
“ Mrs. Hanmer, of Bettisfield (originally Esther Jennings), died 1st, and 
“ was buried 8th of June, 1770.” Susanna, her youngest daughter, who 

* Yorwerth Goch was the name of a Prince of Powis, and ennobles its equivalent Red Ned ; 
and generally ill names are varnished by another language, as coarse pebbles are smoothed and 
brightened by running water. “ Malocello ” or “ Maloisel ” are pretty well to hear or to read, and 
yet I do not doubt that the Genoese who bore them was a very evil sea-bird. 


138 


A MEMORIAL 


became the wife of Mr. Lygon of Madresfield in Worcestershire, was not 
married at Ilanmer. At the request of her descendant, the late Lord 
Beauchamp, who was assailed by some false claim, after the manner of 
modern days, I made many inquiries where she was married without 
result, but as she was horn in 1711 it was perhaps before the rest of them 
came to Bettisfield. The large field called The Bervill, near the entrance 
of Bens Lane, is still marked as the place where William Hanmer’s 
horses were exercised; he died of a fall from one * of them, and it is 
entered in the Ilanmer Register, “ 1754, William Hanmer, Esq., of Iscoyd, 
late of Fens, buried March 12th.” He was then exactly of the age of 
fifty, as his father was at his death, and was succeeded by his brother 
Humphrey : his daughter Esther, Mrs. Curzon, however duly inherited all 
his purchased lands, and they were considerable. Her line also, now 
represented by Lord Howe, succeeded in time to Gopsal and other property 
of Mr. Jennings. A green mound shows now the site of the hall of Fens ; 
close by are some farm-buildings, much added to by myself, but originally 
of William Hanmer's hand ; and I must speak with respect of the bricks 
in them, as much better than such as are now usually made. In the 
mound was discovered an ancient cellar, with many bottles, as far as I can 
judge, of King Charles the Second’s time—but the wine had turned to 
dust, in its long solitude. 

Humphrey Hanmer is present to us in his portrait by Hudson, which 
was given to my father by his widow when she left Hanmer to take up her 
abode in London, at the beginning of this century. It remained however, 
until I transferred it to Bettisfield, at Hanmer Hall. He, as has been 
mentioned, was the third and last son of William Hanmer of the Fens 
and his wife Esther Jennings, and was baptized in Queen Anne’s time, 
May 5th, 1709. In 1754 he succeeded his brother William as tenant for 
life, and then unmarried, under the settlement of 1733 ; and he did a con¬ 
siderable work, if he had not marred it afterwards by leaving the house in 
jointure (as he had the power to do), by rebuilding Hanmer Hall.f He 

* Coming home from the Cycle Club : this originally was a Jacobite meeting, instituted 
June 10th, 1710. Its emblem was a white rose 

| Since the notes relating to the Civil War were printed I have found that while Hanmer 
Hall was in the hands of the Parliamentary forces it was garrisoned by some renegade Irish ; 
this is in a letter to her husband from Mrs. Luke Lloyd of the Bryn, 3rd February, 1643. 


✓ 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


139 


left it however unfinished, a square block of brickwork, with a court-yard 
in front, which gave a stately look to what otherwise had little to recom¬ 
mend it: he had retained Sir John’s doorway, with the date over it of 
1662. The boat-house on Hanmer Mere, now much in need of repair, was 
built by him, and I have heard often in former days of the fishing parties 
he held in it. He had a fisherman named Hewitt, of a family which was 
otherwise in his employment, and a grandson of this man, who had served 
in a dragoon regiment, and received some wound in the head, became an 
extraordinary tramp and wanderer over England. He was very nearly 
silent—few persons ever heard him utter a syllable; and, though he would 
receive alms, he never asked them. He knew me perfectly well, and would 
stand and gaze wistfully at me when I have met him in the high roads at 
various times far away from Hanmer. Humphrey Hanmer in 1766, being 
then described as Bachelor in the Register of St. George’s, Hanover 
Square, married a lady who long survived him, and was known then by 
the name of a second husband as Mrs. Catherine Hanmer Watson; she 
held in jointure the house which her first husband had rebuilt. I well 
remember being taken to see her at her house in London, and her personal 
appearance at that time, and her death which happened in January, 1823. 
She* was buried in our parish church, where Humphrey had been brought 
in 1773, fifty years previously. He died in London, and a story was only 
lately repeated to me in the village here, how the hells at Stratford, in 
Buckinghamshire, were ringing for the succession of his cousin Walden, 
whose house of Svmpson was near that place, as his funeral passed by on 
the way hither. He was very unwilling to leave Hanmer for London 
that spring, and an old man, who had been a boy in the garden there, told 
me more than once how his carriage and equipages went round and round 
the ring in the court-yard, but Humphrey would not come out for near an 
hour from the house, and walked up and down the hall, whistling with his 
hands in his pockets. He was not then, as I suppose, like Cymon in 


“ This weeke there are garrisons put in Fens hall and Bettisfield, and we expect more for 
“ Hanmer; they are of those men that came from Ireland that turned when they were taken 
“ prisoners at The Wych.” 

* By a will dated as far back as 1808, she left all her estate, real and personal, to her friend 
Miss Edgeworth. 

2 o 


140 


A MEMORIAL 


Dryden, who “whistled as he went for want of thought,” hut foresaw he 
should not return, and that his reign of nineteen years was coming to its 
close. 

In his time, and until my grandfather Sir Thomas succeeded to the 
possession of Hanmer Hall at the death of Mrs. Watson, in 1823, there 
was no water there, except what was saved from the rain, as in the houses 
at Venice; hut twice a day supplies were brought from below the village 
in a barrel from St. Chad’s well. Croxton pool was nearer, and would 
have made a better reservoir, but till lately it did not belong to the estate, 
and now nothing drinks of it but the cottagers’ cows upon the banks, and 
water lilies* and wild birds.f Our predecessors of the last century had 
not arrived, if we have, at sanitary principles, and they had forgotten the 
old religions, of the flowing streams and the bubbling springs. When 
they lived in palaces, or now and then in country houses favourable for 
the purpose, they pleased themselves with fountains in the gardens, or 
else they looked out of windows at some brook formalized into a canal. 
Their floors shone with bees’ wax, and their clothes were blue and brilliant 


* The water-lily grows luxuriantly with us, and should be mentioned amongst antiquities, 
since it is associated in the lore of some of the earliest races wdth the beginning of things. Its 
broad green leaves and beautiful blossoms cover every summer many acres of Hanmer Mere ; 
underneath them glide large carp, turned in, I have no doubt, by several generations, but which 
I have heard attributed to Squire Humphrey when I have occasionally caught one. They certainly 
are not such as Ben Jonson described at Pensliurst,— 

“ Fat aged carps that run into the net,” 

for they are very difficult to bring to land, and owe much of their long lives to the craft with 
which they lie quiet at the bottom, and let the nets run over them. 

| Wild birds come into all our waters in windy weather, and there are some sea-gulls 
hovering now over the mere, driven in by the gale which I felt yesterday, as it sent the fierce 
breakers over the harbour wall at Holyhead. A letter of this post mentions some at a place 
in Kent, which I suppose were brought by the same weather from the Medway. Our white- 
winged visitors, however, are not from farther off than the Dee Estuary, and perhaps were swimming 
not long since above the colliery, which now, in the course of reopening after many years, bears 
the name of Bettisfield at Bagilt. Some time ago I saw some cormorants swoop down into the 
fishing draughts at Hanmer, and each, in less than a minute, provided himself with an eel and 
fiew away rejoicing. In 1853 an eagle was shot near the park pool, and he had eaten a good 
part of a Welsh sheep before he went to rest on an oak-tree that was fatal to him. Of late, 
swans living a life as wild as those on the Trent have settled here of their own free will, and 
rear broods of cygnets in summer, which they drive away next spring like any human kind. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


141 


as a kingfisher ; hut, as he skimmed along the river sides, it is to be feared 
that he dipped his plumage oftener after his fashion than some of the 
persons by whom his flights may have been beheld. There is no monu¬ 
ment to Humphrey, nor to either of his brothers, but there is one to Mrs. 
Elizabeth Hanmer of Iscoyd, widow of his brother William; her life began 
with the century, four years earlier than her husband’s, to whom she was 
married at the mature age of thirty-seven, and she died in 1777, aged 
seventy-seven. It is said to he erected by her children, hut Esther Curzon 
her daughter was her only child, and she had been long dead at that time, 
and buried at Pen in Buckinghamshire. Mr., afterwards Viscount, Curzon, 
her husband, had also married a second wife, Miss Dorothy Grosvenor, as 
far hack as 1766. One of the grand-children of Elizabeth, Esther Lady 
Bromley, lived to apply to me for leave to replace it with something she 
thought better, but this was not done ; and I think there is a reasonable 
objection against meddling with monuments of a former generation, though 
there may he obvious mistakes in them, even to please a relation, amiable 
for the memories of her childhood, in her old age. A lozenge of arms upon 
this tablet is strangely incorrect; three lions passant are given for Hanmer, 
while the hearing of Mrs. Elizabeth, though her descendants the Curzon 
family were so much indebted to her, and the Jennings’s weights and 
chevron in her case were attended by the broad lands and roof-tree of 
Gopsal, is not shown at all. The whole seems to have been the result of 
some careless commission to a lapidary, when but little communication 
with our parish remained to those concerned in it, and Sir Walden had 
succeeded his cousin several years. Job Hanmer, father of the latter, who 
in 1677, while Charles the Second yet was King, received “ nelV antico 
nostro Batisteo,” a name of his maternal kindred, died in 1738, and was 
buried March 9th at Sympson, having varied his profession of the bar by 
rural pursuits on the small estate which he obtained with his wife there.* 
It is a kind of life that has received many illustrations, hut our forefather 


* The Walden family was before then settled in Huntingdonshire. In Camden’s visitation it 
is brought down to Lionel, aged 18 in 1613. The Duke of Manchester’s book about Kimbolton 
mentions him as a local opponent of Oliver Cromwell. Pepys also writes him down as going to 
drink Lambeth ale with himself and others, June 10th, 1661: he calls him Parliament man for 
Huntingdon. His portrait is here. 

In the Sympson register of burials, though I understand the entry, with several of the 


142 


A MEMORIAL 


in question did not affect the number of them, and I suppose his days 

passed by as tranquilly as the river Ouse, which he beheld from his 

house upon its margin. His name and connections, and probably also a 

gentle and genial character commemorated in his epitaph, placed him 

among jmists more distinguished than himself as a bencher of Lincoln’s 

Inn; hut if he thus came to the foot of the scala santa of the law, he 

never ascended it, and the principal event of his time which concerns 

us in Hanmer parish is the birth in 1717 of his son Walden. He was 

baptised in London, by the name of his mother’s family, in the church of 

St. Clement Hanes, while his parents still lived in the legal atmosphere 

of Carey Street, Lincoln’s Inn, and in the course of his life, like his 

father, and afterwards his son Sir Thomas, he became a bencher of that 

society.* 

«/ 

The birth-place of his wife, Miss Anne Graham, of Holbrook in 
Suffolk, brought him into connection with the neighbouring borough of 
Sudbury; and, as he was twice seated for it on petition, I hope he may 
have been more legitimately its representative than some others whom we 
recollect in later times. I have by me the printed Parliamentary Paper of 
the speech to the King of Sir Pletcher Norton the Speaker in 1777, with 
Sir Walden’s manuscript notes showing the verbal additions when it was 
printed, hut made at first without such qualifications, on presenting to his 
Majesty the Bill “for the better Support of his Majesty’s Household, and 
of the Honour and Dignity of the Crown of Great Britain; ” it is noted, 


others, is cut out, Job Hanmer was described, according to an old copy, which I have, as “ lord of the 
manor, and justice of the peace.” The latter dignity comes in a grand climax in an old Welsh 
song addressed to Sir Roger Kynaston of Hordley, a famous Yorkist soldier of the York and 
Lancaster wars, and father of Margaret Hanmer, whom I have mentioned. The bard was Gutto 
y Glyn, and he says of Sir Roger in one of his couplets, 

“ Soon an Earl we shall have him at a bound, 

We shall have a Justice of the Kynastons.” 

There is a line in this poem, or lay, which I do not very well understand, mentioning some 
game, perhaps metaphorically, upon “ the throw board of the black men of Talbot.” The latter 
phrase may have been derived from Blackmere, or it may relate to colour of accoutrements or 
armour, but it seems a descriptive term worth preserving, as it concerns the local retainers of 
that great family. 

* Job Hanmer was called to the Bench 23rd January 1729. Sir Walden, his son, 
7th June 1758, and Sir Thomas, 25th June 1817 .—Black Book, Nos. 11, 13, and 20. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


143 


“ tliis speech gave great offencewhich, as it contained wholesome advice, 
was in those days very likely. Sir Walden was also a Member for the same 
place in 1773, when, on the death of his cousin Humphrey, he succeeded 
to him at Hanmer and elsewhere; and the next year the Baronetage, 
which, from the reign of King James I. to the middle of the time 
of King George II. had attended the houses of Bettisfield and Hanmer, 
was renewed to him and bis heirs. 

This parish is much indebted to him for the Hanmer Inclosure Act, 
passed at his instance in 1775. A more effectual contribution to our comfort 
and prosperity could scarcely have been made; and, though now the 
British public is apt to complain if the wild grounds which it would 
dispute like any William Bufus with the commonly reputed owners are 
diminished by the Parliamentary agrimensor, the redemption of wastes— 
and ours were simply wastes, such as the freeholders granted at first in 
Hanmer to Thomas de Macclesfield*—will always hold a high place among 
public works of the last half of the eighteenth and the beginning of the 
nineteenth century. Every man’s right was provided for; hut a kind of 
no-man’ s-land called Threap wood at the northern end of our parish on the 
other side of the Sarn Bridge was not reached by this inclosure. I find 
among my papers the following letters about it, dated in 1753, between 
Mr. Warburton, at that time, I believe, Member for Chester, and Lord 
Chancellor Hardwicke, who, through his relative Mr. Yorke of Erddig near 
Wrexham, had some knowledge of this country. 

Copy of Mr. Warburton’s Letter to Lord Chancellor Hardwicke. 

Chester, Aug. 4, 1753. 

My Lord,—It is by your permission that I trouble you with the present state of a 
place called Threap Wood or Common, lying between the counties of Chester and Flint, 
reputed to be in no county, parish, town, or hamlet. It contains about three hundred 
acres, the greatest part of which is waste land, but very improveable ; the rest is cover’d 
with seven and twenty cottages and small inclosures, and the inhabitants of these cottages 
were about two months ago numbered at one hundred and fifty. It is mostly encompassed 
by the parish of Worthenbury in Maelor hundred, in the county of Flint. On the 

Cheshire side is the parish of Malpas. I find this place mention’d in the Acts of Parlia- 

( 

* I suppose from the tenor of this grant, which is printed at page 11, Part I. that it is 
earlier than the statute “ Quia Emptores,” a.d. 1290,18 Edw. I. 

2 p 


144 


A MEMORIAL 


ment for pressing soldiers in Queen Ann’s reign; certain persons being there assembled to 
avoid being pressed for soldiers, when S r Joseph Jekyll, then Chief Justice of Chester, 
obtain’d a clause, That the Commissioners for executing those Acts in the county of 
Chester might have the like power in Threapwood. And, as I was apprehensive that the 
same inconvenience might again happen, the like clause was obtained on my motion in 
the House of Commons in a Press Act which passed in the last Parliament. I do not find 
this place mentioned in any other Act of Parliament, law book, or case whatsoever, as 
the cottages and inclosures in this place cannot be assessed to the land tax in any county, 
neither do the inhabitants pay any rate or tax whatsoever, except the alesellers, who, by 
the assistance of the Flintshire gentlemen, were brought under the duty of beer and ale, 
and have paid that duty now about twenty years. The right of common for cattle upon 
the waste lands of this place has been constantly and immemorially used by the inhabitants 
of the several adjoyning townships that lye in the countys of Chester and Flint. As 
neither the sherriffs of Chester nor Flint were ever known to exercise their office in this 
place, so no offence criminal or capital committed in this place can be tryed in either of 
those counties, or anywhere else as I apprehend.* The same inconvenience lies as to 
the jurisdiction of justices of the peace. And as there is no county in which any eject¬ 
ment can be brought, where can the right, if there be any, to the cottages and inclosures 
exist but in the present occupants? I have heard that in former reigns, particularly in 
King William’s time, applications have been made to the Great Seal by private persons 
for grants of this place, no doubt with a view to inclose the whole and render it private 
property. But if ever there were such grants it is most certain they never were submitted 
to, and in all probability never will, by the inhabitants of the several townships mentioned 
above, who have time out of mind exercised their right of common for cattle upon this 
place. 

It is, my Lord, because of the obstruction to publick justice, and that some effectual 
way may be found out to have the laws put in execution in this place, and that the peace 
may be kept and good order observ’d in Threapwood, as in other parts of his Majesties 
dominions, that reasons are found for submitting these facts to your Lordship’s considera¬ 
tion by 

Your most obedient and most humble servant, 

P. H. Warburton. 

* Threapwood was commonly called The Holy Land, on account of these peculiar advantages, 
much as the word “ blessed ” is used in the Douay Bible. Its name really comes not from the 
derivation attributed to it by the Lord Chancellor, in his reply, but from the Saxon Avord 
“ Threp ,” a ford. For instance, I observe in the Saxon Chronicle, the name of Aylesford is written 
iEglesthrep. The stream thus at first passed over is called in a petition from Worthenbury in 
Queen Anne’s time the Kiver Elf. The word Trip, which in French is Treper and in Spanish 
Trepar, comes from the same root as Threp. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


145 


Powis House, Aug 1 21 1 *, 1753. 

Sir,—I should not have delay’d so long to acknowledge the favour of your letter of the 
4 th instant, if my constant occupations during the continuance of my Seals had not pre¬ 
vented me. I am extremely obliged to you for the particular account which you give 
me of this extraordinary place called Threapwood, the name whereof I have never heard 
before. But your mention of my old friend Sir Joseph Jekyll having first caus’d it to 
be inserted in the Acts for pressing of soldiers in Queen Anne’s War brought to my mind 
that I had heard him speak of a spot of ground in the countrey called Debatable Land. 
Whether this be the same I can’t tell; but I find that Skinner in his Etymologicon Lingiue 
Anglicance translates the word Threap or Threapen by the Latin word Redarguere, which 
imports in some degree the sense of Debate. The nature of the case speaks strongly that 
such a place must be the seat of much disorder and irregularity, and the asylum of many 
disorderly persons, to the interruption of justice, of which it is surprizing that one has not 
heard more complaints. It is very laudable in you to have turn’d your thoughts to the redress 
of such an inconvenience, and I shall be very ready to co-operate in any proper measures 
for that purpose, to the advancement of the public service, and the satisfaction of the 
gentlemen of the countrey. I observe that, in the clause which you procur’d to be 
inserted in the Act 18° Geo. 2 dl . this district is describ’d as lying within or near the counties 
of Chester and Flint or one of them , which induces me to conjecture that it maybe claim’d 
by both counties. I never heard of any application for a grant of this ground, nor do I 
believe that any such grant ever pass’d. But, if any such application ever was made, it 
must have been thro’ the Treasury, for the Great Seal could have nothing to do with it, 
except in the last stage by sealing Letters Patent. 

As we are now at so great a distance, I have desir’d Mr. Noel, your Chief Justice, to 
take an opportunity of conferring with you on this subject, to which I presum’d you 
would have no objection, as the affair concerns the public service. 

I am, with much respect, 

Sir, 

Your most obedient humble Servant, 

LIardwicke. 

Sir Walden sat for his portrait to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the 
picture is in good condition in this house. His wife,* who died before him 
in 1778, and with whom five years afterwards, Oct. 27, 1783, he was him- 

* Her father Mr. Henry Vere Graham appears to have been, by some line or other, of the 
Montrose cadets ; so I interpret an application to Sir Thomas, which I have found, to subscribe to 
a History of the Drummonds as a descendant of that family. I cannot trace any connection with 
them, except through the name Graham, and Montrose marriages. Sir Walden and his wife 
were married at Fordham, in Cambridgeshire. 


146 


A MEMORIAL 


self buried at Sympson,* was by her mother descended from the Warner 
family, one of whom, Sir John, made, in the time of King Charles II., so 
unfortunate an appearance in our annals. Holbrook, which was a Warner 
house, ultimately passed to Job, Sir Walden’s second son. The eldest, 
Thomas, my grandfather, was born there April 5th, 1747, and baptised 
April 12th in the church of Little Waldingfield. My grandfather 
succeeded his father here in 1783, having previously, 3rd December, 1779, 
married Miss Margaret Kenyon of Peel in Lancashire, niece of the 
Chief Justice.! With her he passed a long life, his ending in 1828, 
hers in 1830, almost continually at Bettisfield; very much, as I 
have had occasion to think, to the advantage of Hanmer parish. Sir 
Thomas was an active cultivator of waste lands, and built and planted 
much, and made many roads about his property. The library and drawing¬ 
room which he added to Bettisfield are light and graceful rooms, and, 
though he used too much timber in his farm buildings, they answered very 
well for a great number of years. 

There is a portrait of him in the picture of the Sheep-shearing at 
Woburn Abbey, and in some of his cabinets are fine specimens of wool 
which he grew here; but the dairy husbandry suits best our system of 
small farms, wdiose occupiers would not know what to do with sheep, 
unless they took to milking them, as we see occasionally painted on 
foreign tea-cups. There is another portrait of my grandfather by Gains¬ 
borough, l but I am sorry to say it only show T s how unequal a great artist 
may be. A famous picture by Gainsborough of a Cottage Girl was painted 
for Job Hanmer of Holbrook, but I do not know what became of it. 

I have arrived at a space in our history when there are no longer any 
antiquities to elucidate, and when such correspondence as I can find would 
scarcely interest any one. Here, for instance, are two letters from the 
President of the Boyal Society, on the article of cranberries, &c. : 


* Sir Walden’s will was proved 15 Nov. 1783. 

| I have heard her say that the year they came to live here, in 1783, the oats were ungathered 
and out upon the ground the week before Christmas. 

f There is also a picture of Margaret Lady Hanmer by Gainsborough; altered_not 

to its advantage, as I am told by those who remember it in its first condition—by Sir Martin 
Shee. 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


147 


Spring Gardens, June 17th. 

My dear Sir Thomas,—As I am an unsuccessful cultivator of the English cranberry 
I shall be thankful to you for the name of the person you mentioned, and who is so fortunate 
as to gather from three yards square enough for the use of the family : possibly some 
ol the members of the Horticultural Society may live within reach of the garden where 
this good work is performed, and I may be able through their means to obtain some 
instructions. What I most want to know is, whether the white moss, which is almost 
always found with the cranberries, was transplanted with them, or whether they grow upon 
the bare soil. 

Believe me, my dear Sir Thomas, 

Your very faithful Servant, 

Joseph Banks. 

Soho Square, Nov. 21, 1814. 

My dear Sir Thomas,—Many thanks for your liberal present of cranberries, which 
are the finest I ever saw, all of them well ripened. We have had many adventures since we 
had the pleasure of seeing you, have been twice overturned without damage, and have 
lived two months in Lincolnshire without bringing away an ague. Our crops of corn 
were bad, the sample when threshed still more so, and the price worst of all. I trust you 
are more prosperous than we are. I have seen charming wheat from Devonshire, where no 
blight appeared, and have heard that no blight was felt at Carlisle. I trust that Hanmer- 
shire is exempt. 

Adieu, my dear Sir Thomas, 

Your very faithful servant, 

J. Banks. 

There is a white mulberry tree in the garden here which was planted 
by Sir Joseph Banks, and he amused himself once, upon a visit, by 
making a still existing ice-house. 

A letter from Lord Kenyon the Chief Justice answers one of friendly 
congratulation on his appointment to that trust and dignity. It is dated 
from the residence of the Master of the Bnlls, which office he had held 
for some time before :— 

My dear Sir,—I am much obliged to you for all your acts of friendship to me and 
my family, particularly for your late kind congratulations and good wishes. The situations 
in which I have been recently placed by His Majesty’s great goodness have some things 
very flattering about them, but I am not without a considerable degree of apprehension 
when I contemplate the arduousness of my office. I look with something approaching 
alarm at my business in Westminster Hall for the next three weeks, and pant for the 

2Q 


148 


A MEMORIAL 


beginning of August, which I hope may bring us safely to the neighbourhood of our 
dearest friends at Bettisfield Park. Lady Kenyon joins me in every good wish for the 
happiness of yourself, our niece, and your family. 

Your affectionate friend and Servant, 

Kenyon. 

Rolls, 12th June, 1788. 


The following also, sent apparently from the circuit, though like any 
ordinary letter we read at breakfast, gave rise no doubt in its day to 
friendly thoughts of the writer, and may contribute to the same end still; 
it is at least as good as one from Mr. Pennant to Sir Boger Mostyn in the 
last edition of Mr. Pennant’s Tour in Wales :— 


Bury St. Edmund’s, August 14th, 1791. 

My dear Sir Thomas,—I have this day received the inclosed letter ; I hope what is 
asserted in it is true. I beg you will keep it, as it may be necessary to refer to when I 
return to town. We are going this day after church to dine with Sir Charles Bunbury 
at Barton. I hear your brother Job has been exceedingly ill. My love and best wishes 
to Lady Hanmer and the young ones. 

Yours very sincerely, 

Kenyon. 

The writer of these letters, and of one or two others from the same 
hand, (in one he says, on account of militia business he is very sick of the 
office of Lord Lieutenant of Plintsliire,) was certainly a great honour to our 
parish, where he was horn in 1732, and deserves attention to he paid to 
his personal history, which I hope he will receive from some of his great¬ 
grandchildren. All the gibes against him of the Bolliad, and the like, 
are like salt that has lost its savour. He was called a legal monk in a 
debate by a gambler of Brookes’s club, and it is said there were points of 
view in which he might have been thought like one; but, out of the 
seclusion that made him the great lawyer that he was, he showed himself 
a benevolent man, communicative of good, and all the while he was Chief 
Justice he would readily and freely decide differences between his neigh¬ 
bours, and was pleased if he could prevent any one from going to law. 
There is now only one old farmer who can remember him; he considers 
him to have been, as Addison says of the Spectator, a very silent man. 
I can remember an aged lady, younger sister of his wife; she told me 


OF THE PARISH OF HANMER. 


149 


she saw some troops of the Pretender in 1745 eating oat-cakes in the 
courtyard at Peel, her father’s house. The Chief Justice had, as I have 
heard, a habit very bad for a judge, or indeed for any one else, of riding 
restive or not well-broken horses when he came for the vacations to 
Gredington. 

Whether I may be able to improve upon these homely details, by 
making a forward cast to the present time, and attempting to delineate the 
modern state of Hamner parish, and its vicinity, I scarcely know ; the task 
would not be an easy one to discharge properly, and it must depend in 
some degree upon the rain or sunshine of these autumn days. Meanwhile, 
to fulfil the heading of this part, “from the eighteenth into the nineteeth 
century,” I will add that Sir Thomas and his neighbours were not slow 
to get on horseback in the great rising of the country to meet the 
menaced invasions of the Prench Republic and Napoleon, and my father, 
who was born in 17S1, was placed at the head of the Plintshire militia, 
and commanded it in the positions of the south coast under Sir John 
Moore. He had a sword given him in token of friendship and appro¬ 
bation by that distinguished general. The following is a new-year’s 
message of those days. 


Prom Mr. Davies of Broughton to Sir Thomas Hanmer. 


Broughton, Jan. 1st. 1797. 

Dear Sir,—We unite in wishing you and yours many happy years. 

My father has sent his old servant Job about an hour ago to Chester. We received 
this morning (and have transmitted to Bath) Irish papers as late as y e 29th ult. lhe 
French fleet is certainly in Bantry Bay in the south of Ireland ; a boat of one ol then 
ships was driven ashore, and a lieutenant taken; he is now a prisoner in Dublin. 17 sail 
of the line, 15 frigates, besides transports, part of them in the above-mentioned bay, part 
driven by winds into the Atlantic, are dismasted; Ireland in activity and represented as 
well-disposed. I entertain the strongest hope that neither man nor ship will escape. An 
express passed through Chester from y c Lord Lieutenant last night. 

Under these circumstances you will be kind enough to defer the hunting party till 
Tuesday morning, as old Job will scarcely return to-night. 

I remain, dear Sir, 

Your obedient servant, 

W. W. Davies. 


150 


A MEMORIAL 


From Lieut.-Col. Thomas Hanmer to Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. 

Portsmouth, July 21st, 1803. 

My dear Father,—I am happy to hear of your active exertions in the county for the 
general good, and suppose a Flintshire address will soon make its appearance in the public 
prints amongst the numerous others with which they abound. I hear you are going to 
raise a troop of yeomanry, and wish much to hear if it is true, and whether Mr. Kynaston 
makes any stir in our neighbouring county with respect to his former intentions of raising 
a regiment. Mr. Wills being appointed Captain I suppose will now be the only officer to 
bring up the supplementary men. We are in great want of subalterns. I am going 
to a dance on board the Windsor Castle at Spithead to-morrow evening, which will be 
pleasant if the weather continues fine. Is the coach finished and come down? They 
say Bonaparte has ordered dinner at Shooters Hill for the 15th of September; in short, 
there is no end of the bombast stories in circulation. We fired six rounds of ball cartridges 
yesterday morning on the beach at a target exactly a hundred yards distance, and put 47 
balls through it, which has gained us some credit. The weather is so intensely hot that 
several of my men were taken ill with fevers yesterday morning owing to standing in one 
position under such a scorching sun for so long a time; they dropped as if they were shot. 
How does my colt come on? I suppose he must be quite fat. Lord Grosvenor is just 
come to town from Newmarket, where I see he has been beat. We expect him next 
week, but his arrival is always uncertain. With best love to all at Bettisfield, I am, 

Your ever dutiful and affectionate son, 

Tho. Hanmer 

Write soon. 


Sandgate, Angust 16th, 1805. 

My dear Father,—I am glad to hear your crops of hay have been so abundant. Com 
harvest here is on the eve of commencing, with fine weather for it. We are constantly 
watching the enemies’ boats, which some days sitice made a considerable attack on our 
cruisers, though without much loss. Every preparation is made here to receive them, and 
the general supposition is that they will make an immediate attempt. Notwithstanding 
this, the ladies here for the bathing season do not appear the least alarmed. I have ridden 
about a good deal lately, and made myself acquainted with the coast, coming back by 
Tunbridge and Ashford. The regiment goes on well, and the Generals are agreeable and 
pleasant men to serve under. It is very strange we have no accounts from Lord Nelson ; 
the public seem in great expectation. The brigade marched this morning to exercise in 
Lord Rokeby’s park, near a place called Lymne, about six miles off. All precautionary 
measures have been taken. 

Your most affectionate son, 


To Sir Thomas Hanmer, Bart. 
Bettisfield Park, Whitchurch, Shropshire. 


Tho. Hanmer. 


OF TIIE PARISH OF HANMER. 


151 


Sir Thomas had by his marriage with Miss Margaret Kenyon seven 
children: 

Thomas, Lt.-Colonel, born April 12th, 1781, the writer of the two last 
letters, and who was my father. 

Job Walden, a barrister, horn July 30th, 1782. 

John, for a long time Vicar of Hanmer, horn February 28th, 1784. 

Margaret Emma, second Lady Kenyon, born July 7th, 1785. 

George Edward, Lector of Loddington, born August 28th, 1786. 

Henry, Lt.-Colonel It. II. Gds. and M.P. for Aylesbury, born April 
30th, 1789. 

William, of Bodnod, in Denbighshire, horn Oct. 28tli, 1792. 

The Ordnance Surveyors acquaint me that their papers will not be 
ready for a year, and it seems I shall now miss the advantage of their maps 
and references. Their poles are on all the banks, and stand up on the tops 
of trees, but the herons will know them for land-marks sooner than we 
shall; I therefore leave them at present to these heraldic birds. They haunt 
about the border of the Mere forty-five yards below the northern slopes of 
the park; the grey water shines ont, as if it were a shield of steel: Owen 
Glvndwr might have stood beside it, to be forewarned by a Welsh witch, as 
Saul was once at Endor. But now comes the enumerator for the Census 
of statistics and not of fighting men; he assigns to us five hundred and 
eleven inhabited houses against five hundred and four of ten years ago, 
and two thousand four hundred and twenty-eight inhabitants against 
two thousand five hundred and nineteen. The decrease is apparent but 
not real, for it is caused by the completion of railway and drainage works 
and the departure of the men employed in them. The births exceed the 
deaths in this decennial period by two hundred and eiglity-four. This 
Census accounts us in the West Midland division, but we should have 
said the North Western, from which as it is given we are separated by the 
narrow course of the Wich Brook. Everybody in these days is trying 
to catch Plutus the divine, and to open his eyes, as in the days of 
Aristophanes; but the deities invoked by Varro are more in our line of 
rural economy; we have the happiness to he reasonably content. The 


152 


A MEMORIAL 


Census gives one of the proofs usually accepted that we keep up with the 
tide-marks of the time ; and Bettisfield, which always had some traffic by 
the canal, is now by dint of the railway becoming for a country village a 
tolerably busy place. Tickets taken there bear the impress Bettisfield = 
London, one of which accordingly excited a smile from a great statesman 
to whom I showed it. But all ways led to Borne, and so do ours; as 
once bv the Watling Street, so now bv the rail, whithersoever we may 
be going ; and one of the longest fibres of the world’s commerce has surely 
reached us here, for the fine hard Californian wheat is sold at the station 
without causing alarm or regret to our farmers. 

I remember when a bitter Counsel, wishing to annihilate an antagonist 
before a House of Commons Committee, barbed bis arrow by saying that 
the gentleman in question had as much regard for the public interest as a 
Californian savage. Now the trees and flowers of that beautiful region 
ornament our gardens, and one of the Wellington pines, with its dark- 
green stately branches, is growing opposite my windows in the garden of 
old Sir Thomas the Cavalier. This house, as he rebuilt or repaired it after 
the Civil War, had the date of 1658 over the door. My grandfather made 
some additions, which were not very congruous with the rest, but were 
only part of a house he intended to complete, and did not. I have no 
money to spend on architecture, nor indeed any taste or learning of that 
kind; but it appears to me that every dwelling of a gentleman ought to 
have an idea about it, and I governed such works as I have done here 
from time to time by a verse of Victor Hugo, where, writing to a friend, 
he speaks of his chateau as tour vieille et maison neuve; therefore I built 
a large red tower to stand for the tour vieille , and connected it with all 
the ancient parts of the house; and I left my grandfather’s building to 
stand for the maison neuve , and the general arrangement seems not unsuc¬ 
cessful. Some trees and seedlings about the place have been grown from 
cones and berries that I have brought from a distance or have been given 
me from thence by friends ; the curly-leaved willows came from Simla ; 
the maritime pines are from seeds that ripened by Mediterranean waves. 
We long had cypresses from Mount Sinai, but they died in one of the late 
cold winters. The other cypresses I brought from the Albani Villa at 
Borne; some mountain-ashes are from the Tamar; some oaks from acorns 


OF THE PARISH OF IIANMER. 


153 


gathered near the Severn from a tree which is reputed to be descended 
from Augustine’s. The other St. Augustine, of Hippo, says in one of his 
sermons (I am indebted to a hook by Archbishop Trench for the quotation) 
Vis possidere terrain; vide ne possidearis a terra; with which wise words 
of the African Bishop I dutifully devote these notes to memories and to 
landmarks. 




N 0 T E S. 


Page 4. Names of Places. 

Street Lydan, the Broadway, is our Via Lata, leading by Penley to Overtoi 
and the brown currents of the Dee. 

Page 36. Embassy to invest King Henry III. with the Order of the Garter. 

Lord Derby’s embassy, of which this portrait is a solitary relic, without a legend 
here, except for such notes as these, was when King Henry III. was inclined 
to court Protestant alliances against the Catholics of the League. The picture 
sometimes suggests to me how many historic events, without any local history 
of their adventures, the inhabitants of these walls have seen. 


Page 141. Job Hanmer. 

Ausonius appears to have found persons uniting legal and agricultural pursuits 
about the Roman fields and boroughs of the Moselle. 

“ Memorabo quietos 
u Agricolas, legumque catos, fandique potentes, 
u Presidium sublime reis, quos Curia summos 
u Municipum vidit proceres, propriumque Senatum.” 

Mosella, v. 399. 

This consular poet, in his verses called Parentalia, is among the authorities for 
family history, which however he says is as old as Numa. 


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